Report on the Far.n-Prize Competition o/" 1872. 
S03 
The parings are burned, and tlien a dressing of good dung, say 
20 tons per acre, is spread and ploughed in. Left in rough 
furrow through winter, a spring ploughing or scarifying, and 
sundry turns with the harrow, fit the land for sowing. Yellow- 
globe mangolds are grown on 26-inch drills, and are usually 
singled to a distance of 14 or 15 inches. For mangolds and 
swedes alike, about 6 cwts. per acre of Lawes' bone-phosphate is 
given, besides the dressing of dung ; and the result, in a good 
season, is from 35 to 40 tons of mangold, and 20 to 25 of swedes. 
Hoeing and thinning, first time over, cost 6s., with the addition 
of one quart of beer per acre. Covered with a thick layer of 
straw, and then thatched (no soil being used), Mr. Spencer's 
mangold heaps show both taste and careful foresight. Common 
turnips, drilled on the flat, after the catch-crops (triiolium, 
mustard, vetches, »Scc.) have been consumed by cake-eating sheep, 
are successfully grown. A dressing of 4 to 5 cwts. of bone- 
phosphate is applied to the white turnips, and the crop maintains 
the lamb stock during the beginning of winter, allowing a few 
for the ewes also in the early spring. 
Barley or spring wheat, being found more remunerative than 
oats, always follows roots. Golden-melon barley, drilled at the 
', end of March, at the rate of 3 bushels, commonly brings a yield 
I of 50 bushels per acre. Of spring wheats Mr. Spencer prefers 
"Grace's White" variety: 2^ bushels per acre are drilled in 
February or beginning of March, and an average crop yields 
40 bushels. " Taunton-dean," " Essex White," and other autumn 
wheats, are sown on the clover leas. Lorn about the 20th of 
October until the second week in November, according to con- 
. venience and weather. No manure is applied at this time, and, 
[ when a good sample of seed can be procured, it is seldom 
vitrioled. The wheat is rarely cropped by sheep in spring. 
Grass seeds, along with the barley and wheat after roots, are 
sown in April. A common mixture is the following : — 
4 lbs. Trefoil [Medicago Lupulina), 
8 lbs. Red Clover and Cowgrass, 
2 lbs. Dutch Clover, 
2 lbs. Alsike ditto, and 
^ to ^ an imperial bushel of Italian Ryegrass. 
This year, however, Mr. Spencer has put down 9 acres into 
: sainfoin, sowing 3 bushels per acre, with 6 lbs. of the yellow and 
. white clovers; while in another field, by way of experiment, 
[ and to seek out some remedy for clover-sickness, he has sown in 
place of the above dressing, for one year's grazing, 2 bushels of 
: sainfoin, and 8 lbs. of mixed clover. About one-third of the seed- 
break is mown for hay, which is given to the farm horses during 
the busy months of spring. 
VOL. YIII. — S. S. , X 
