300 Report on the Farm-Prize Competition of 1872. 
season, very free from couch and other noxious weeds; whilst his 
farm accounts (which we look upon as a most important feature) 
are well kept and easily understood. 
Mr. Parsons has previously taken six prizes for the best-culti- 
vated farm in the Union of Chepstow ; and fifteen other minor 
trophies grace his well-spread sideboard. 
Me. Daniel Owen's Faem. 
Mr. Daniel Owen took Ash Hall, with the farm of 83 acres, 
at Candlemas, 186G. With this he works 22 acres of his own 
land. Three miles from Cowbridge, and about ten from the 
sea-coast. Ash Hall commands a beautiful and extensive view : 
300 feet above the sea-level, and with a considerable sprinkling 
of timber, the clouds gathered from the Atlantic deposit their 
watery burthen somewhat freely, and gave a rainfall of 40"96 
inches for 1871. Mr. Owen, in December, 1860, purchased 
23 acres of unenclosed mountain-land half a mile from Ash Hall, 
at 24^. per acre; had a small house and premises built, made roads, 
and planted for shelter and ornament 18,000 trees, mostly of 
the pine tribe. The same spirit of improvement has since been 
continuously exhibited at Ash Hall, which was taken on a ten 
years' lease. Roads have been made, fences renewed, land-fast 
stones removed, furze, fern, and weeds got rid of, 16/. per acre 
embarked as capital, manures and feeding-stuffs freely used, the 
produce in six years nearly trebled. But, masterly and full of 
instruction as is Mr. Owen's management, the Judges felt that 
Ash Hall could not fairly compete with ordinary rack-rented 
farms. With a handsome house, gardens, and shrubberies, 
entered on the rate-books at 50Z. annual value ; with 32 acres of 
pleasantly undulating park, divided by iron hurdles into con- 
venient paddocks ; with only 51 acres of arable land, until this 
spring 12 acres in addition were broken up from sainfoin ; with 
a small herd of nice cattle, and an occasional flying sheep-stock, 
Ash Hall must be regarded as a " fancy" farm, which, although 
■not eligible for money prizes, is well deserving of high com- 
mendation, and, from the spirit and success which has charac- 
terised its management, demands a somewhat detailed de- 
scription. 
Eight years' colonial experience has taught Mr. Owen to make 
the best of his surroundings ; bread and meat, as he pertinently 
puts it, may be economically manufactured from road-scrapings: 
the wide deep banks which begirt bis fields and roads are 
accordingly turned up and mixed with such yard-dung as can 
be spared, — with lime, of which 17,340 bushels have been used 
