31G 
Agricultural Notes on Hertfordshire. 
single ear, which he specially recommends, as bearing the forcing 
of high farming'. 
As the fair testing of different sorts of wheat on the same 
ground is as difficult as it is important, Mr. Hainworth's method 
is worthy of notice. First he selects a field in which the soil is 
as near as may be, of an uniform character, measuring, for 
example, lli poles wide by 33 poles long ; 8 rows of each dif- 
ferent sort of wheat are dibbled with great care, the short way of 
the land, 9 inches apart, and 5 inches between the holes, in each 
of which three corns are deposited. This is repeated in succes- 
sion until the whole piece of land is cropped with say 11 beds 
of each sort. The 8 rows of each variety in each bed are reaped 
separately, bound and set up, then brought together, threshed 
and measured, thus giving a fair average of the whole 11 beds, 
grown in different parts of the same field. The farm on which 
these experiments are made is necessarily in a high and cleanly 
state of cultivation ; its fertility, in fact, is maintained by the 
application of London stable manure. . If this careful selection, 
cultivation, and testing of varieties of wheat be looked on 
merely as a commercial speculation, the results must be valu- 
able ; but in this case, as in almost all such, the higher object of 
advancing the interests of agriculture gives a fresh stimulus to 
the labour and skill which such experiments at all times require. 
Sheep. 
After a word of commendation of the Hoo flock of 400 
Sussex downs, improved of late by rams from Babraham, and a 
word of warning as to the ultimate results of cross-breeding 
between the long and short woolled races, however promising at 
first, I pass on to speak of that which for not less than two cen- 
turies has been called " the far-famed Benn'ington flock." Ben- 
nington is a village near the centre of the county, between 
Stevenage and Standon. The flock, which is still owned by the 
descendants of those who first formed it, is said to have sprung 
originally from the old Wiltshire horned breed, which appears 
to have formed the staple of the sheep stock in the midland 
counties of England up to the beginning of the present century. 
Within the memory of many persons, the horn, one of its dis- 
tinguishing features, though reduced in size, was still retained, 
and in all respects the sheep were nearer their original type than 
at present. Attempts at improvements were at one time mailt 
by the introduction of Leicester, Gloucester, or Cotswold rams, 
though the produce of one, if not both these crosses, was weeded 
from the flock. Of late years the chief, if not the only new 
blood, has been Lincoln ; some of the flock still retain traces of 
