302 Report on the Farm-Prize Competition of 1872. 
and 3 cwts. of common salt. Judging from adjoining fields in 
their natural condition of unaided poverty, this six-acre piece 
certainly yields more than a double return, and will cut 50 cwts. 
of superior hay. This season's outlay, although slightly exceed- 
ing 30s. per acre, will, Mr. Owen believes, be repaid in the extra 
hay and aftermath ; but, even without further fertilisers, the 
augmented yield will certainly extend over several years. 
The friable gravel soil, usually six inches deep, and readily 
worked by a pair of good horses, reposes on the carboniferous lime- 
stone, which is here so full of faults that the horses at work often 
slip into holes several feet in depth. 24 to 30 bushels of oats, barley, 
or wheat, and half a ton of rough innutritive grass, was the annual 
yield of the poor moor-land when first it came into Mr. Owen's 
hands. It was almost hopeless to attempt swedes or mangold, and 
the weakly crops were overrun with weeds. The like wretched 
returns are still found throughout fields adjacent to those which 
have been so rapidly rendered productive and profitable. Secure 
of his ten years' possession, Mr. Owen at once began his spirited 
process of reclamation. The furze and fern were stocked and 
burned ; the light soil with the porous limestone substratum 
stood in little need of draining ; deep ploughing prepared the 
land usually for oats, which were helped along by salt, nitrate of 
soda, and similar adjuvants. 
For mangolds and swedes, the stubbles, which are now very 
clean, are forked over in autumn and ploughed ; a spring furrow 
usually follows ; during March 10 cwts. of common salt per acre 
is broadcasted and harrowed in; and at seeding time they receive, 
in the drills, 25 to 30 tons per acre of farmyard-manure, which 
if applied in autumn might run too rapidly through the porous 
soil and subsoil. This year the acre allotted for mangold was 
in the first week in April seeded with 8 lbs. of Cornell's Orange 
Globe, drilled along with 6 cwts. of dissolved bones. Under this 
liberal management 50 tons per acre have not unfrequently been 
realised. 
Swedes, of which 12 acres of Sutton's Champion we^re this year 
drilled during the last few days of May, are treated much in the 
same way as mangold, are easily kept clean by timely horse and 
hand-hoeing, and are expected to attain to 30 tons per acre. 
The roots are mostly fed off with sheep, of which about 160, 
usually good Cotswolds or Wiltshire Downs, are bought in 
August, fatted, and generally sold in March. As they arc 
liberally treated with clover-hay, cake, and corn, with 2 ozs. 
daily of salt, the light land gains firmness and condition, and in 
the subsequent season 50 to 57 bushels of wheat are obtained. 
To the large number and liberal management of the sheep fed; 
Mr. Owen in great part ascribes his successes. 
