JOURNAL 
OF THE 
ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 
OF ENGLA?(D. 
XIII. — Report on the Farm-prize Competition, 1870.* 
Bj H. W. Keaky. 
Introduction. 
Before entering upon a description of the several farms which 
will form the subject of this Report, it may be well to give a 
short account of the origin of the competition. 
Mr. Mason of Eynsham Hall, near Witney, late High Sheriff 
of Oxfordshire, with a most laudable desire to promote the im- 
provement of agriculture, and also, if possible, to obtain from 
Judges appointed by the Royal Agricultural Society a definition 
of that which constitutes good farming, offered a most handsome 
prize, of a hundred-guinea cup, for the best-managed farm com- 
prised within a district, the boundary line of which runs through 
* The map illustrating this Report is a reduction from the maps of the Geo- 
logical Survey of Great Britain, with the addition thereto of certain surface- 
deposits, which unfortunately have hitherto been more or less ignored by the 
Survey, though happily not so much so by the surveyors. I have been enabled to 
map the approximate distribution of these deposits by the kindness of several 
geological friends, especially Professor J. Phillips, M.A., F. R.S. ; Rev. J. C. 
Clutterbuck, M.A. ; W. Whitaker, Esq., B.A., F.G.S. ; and J. Codrington, Esq., 
F.G.S. The alluvial soil of the river-valleys is left uncoloured. The valley- 
gravels (coloured plain yellow) generally constitute light land ; an analysis and a 
description of the land are given subsequently in Mr. Druce's paper. The high-level 
drifts (yellow with black dots) form the strong land which so frequently covers the 
summits of the chalk and oolite hills ; they are known to geologists under various 
names, corresponding either with their relative age or lithological characters, but 
in the Prize-farm district they consist generally of " clay with flints," on the chalk, 
passing on their margin into a more distinct "flint-gravel," which latter is the 
character they assume on the other formations in this district. Near Brackley this 
drift is associated with boulders. The " scattered pebbles," shown by red dots, are 
much too scattered to be mapped into distinct beds; but as they influence the 
agricultural character of the surface, they cannot be omitted from a map of the 
" surface-geology." I fear that the public-spirited donor of the silver cup, which 
gave rise to the farm-prize competition, possesses experimental knowledge of the 
poor hungry nature of the land over which they spread. — H. M. J. 
VOL. YI. — S. S. T 
