608 Typical Farms in Cheshire and North Wades. 
implement sheds, with granary above ; hay barns, piggeries, and poultry 
house ; corn-mixing room with shafting driven by water-wheel for pulping, 
chaff-cutting, corn-crushing, turnip-cutting, &c. The water, which is col- 
lected in a reservoir, is conducted by underground culvert to the wheel, and 
the overflow is carried by pipes to the meadow and the shore. The outlay 
on this work exceeded 300/., and was defrayed by the tenant. The manure 
is carefully collected in the yards, and that in excess in the fields is gathered 
up and mixed with soil and used as a top-dressing on the land. 
The farm contains 320 acres, including foreshore and quarry waste, and 
these, together with the space occupied by the house and buildings, leave 
300 acres for cultivation. Of this 102 acres are worked as arable land, and 
the remainder is treated as permanent pasture. The rent, tithes, rates and 
taxes exceed 600/. per annum, which, from a business point of view, seems 
a high sum, considering the moderate quality of the plough land, which 
if not highly farmed would be of an unproductive character. The tenancy 
is an annual one, terminating at six months’ notice to quit on November 13. 
The agreement stipulates that two white straw crops shall not be taken 
consecutively without manure, and that no hay, straw, or roots shall be 
sold off without the written consent of the landlord. Sliding scales of 
allowances are made for tenant’s outlay in durable improvements and for 
manures ; for buildings upon cost, on a thirty years’ scale ; for stone-wall 
erection on a twenty years’ scale ; and for manures, one-third of the last 
year’s expenditure and one-fourth of the previous one. No permanent 
deduction has been made in the rental. Abatements have been allowed 
for two years past at the rate of 10 per cent., and on the last half-year of 
25 per cent. The farm has been excellently laid out, by one of Mr. 
Roberts’s relatives and predecessors, in square fields of from 20 to 10 acres, 
with a few small crofts. These are bounded by well-built stone walls 
some 5 feet high and 3 feet wide at bottom, tapering to 18 inches at top, or 
stone walls enclosing banks on which quick hedges are planted and carefully 
trimmed and attended to, or quick fences guarded by slate pillars set in 
ground on end. Watering pits and a well 30 feet deep, with pump to 
supply water to several fields, have been constructed at Mr. Roberts’s 
expense. 
The rotation of cropping is — Oats, mangel and swedes, oats seeded and 
left down for three or four years. The oats sown after breaking up the 
clover have 3 or 4 cwt. of superphosphate per acre harrowed in at the 
time of drilling. Black Tartarians are alone grown, and the large quantity 
of 8 imperial bushels of seed is sown. The ground is well cleaned after the 
oat crop, and mangel and swedes put in on the ridge, the former with, the 
latter without, farmyard manure. They receive a heavy dressing of 10 cwt. 
of prepared turnip manure per acre. The succeeding crop of oats is seeded 
down with 8 lb. red clover, 2 lb. trefoil, 2 lb. Alsike, 2 lb. white Dutch clover, 
2 lb. timothy, and 1 bushel perennial rye-grass, and these are always mown 
the first year. There were about 32 acres of oats, half succeeding ley and the 
rest after roots, 16 acres of roots, 16 acres of first year’s seeds, and 51 acres of 
older leys, on the arable portion of the farm this season, and the remainder 
in permanent pasture. The oats were of a good colour, and likely to make a 
heavy crop. The root cultivation was very clean and creditable. The mangel, 
27 inches apart, and the swedes 23 inches, were sown the middle of April. 
A few of the swedes had not been thinned. This work is done by hand- 
picking by boys, at wages of about Is. 8 d. a day, under the supervision of a 
carefuf man. The plants were strong and healthy. The whole of the clovers 
and pastures were beginning to suffer much from the prolonged drought. The 
seeds put up for hay were decreasing under this influence, and the rest of the 
hay was not likely to prove otherwise than a light crop. Mr. Roberts mows 
