Report on the Farm-Prize Competition of 1872. 313 
advantages possessed by this favoured county, need cause no 
surprise. It was doubtless the hitherto recognised and much 
dreaded superiority of the once Welsh county that caused the 
competitors resident in Wales to think it "hard lines" that 
Monmouthshire should have been included in this exhibition of 
farms, when, at the same time, the three remaining English 
counties (Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester) which, with 
South Wales, make up the Society's show district for this year, 
were, and in their opinion very properly, debarred from entering 
the lists. Results, however, show that there was no need for 
raising the objection, seeing that Glamorganshire, and not Mon- 
mouthshire, has produced the best managed farm. Doubtless, 
Welsh farming has within the last few years made amazing 
progress, and this improvement may be in a great measure 
attributed to the rapid extension and marked prosperity of the 
mining and manufacturing industries. Create the demand, and 
you are sure to increase the supply. In and around the busy 
thriving towns of Newport, Cardiff, Swansea, Neath, Aberdare, 
and Merthyr Tydvil, a hardworking and ever increasing popula- 
tion earn high wages, and therefore demand, as they deserve, 
good and abundant food. Beef and mutton command as high a 
figure here as in the largest and most flourishing of our English 
towns, while dairy produce is eagerly bought up. In fact, every- 
thing the farmer has to sell realises a highly remunerative price ; 
and the resources of the land, if they are not already made the 
most of, must soon be called into the fullest action. Clover hay, 
for instance, meets with a brisk market at 4/. IO5. to 5/. 5s. per 
ton ; whilst wheat straw, variously estimated as worth I4s. to 20s. 
per ton to tread into manure, can be readily sold at from 3/. 10s. 
to 4/. Without expense to the farmer these products are generally 
taken from the premises by the dealers' own carts, thus con- 
siderably enhancing the prices quoted. Many good managers, 
especially those scantily supplied with buildings, avail them- 
selves of these prices, and sell off a large proportion of their 
straw and some hay ; and, by bringing back all they can procure 
of town-made muck, and supplementing it with the best artificial 
fertilizers, they can easily maintain unimpaired the manurial 
condition of their farms. 
A glance at the geological map shows that the farm-prize 
district rests on a great variety of formations, and therefore the 
soils met with differ correspondingly in character. In Mon- 
mouthshire, and the north-eastern portions of Glamorganshire, 
the Old Red Sandstone preponderates, and^this always furnishes 
land capable of producing in abundance every kind of crop. 
Narrow strips of this rock are also found skirting the sea-coast 
in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, while the northern 
