Typical Farms in Cheshire and North Wales. 611 
rates liave not varied much for some years. This season’s crops con- 
sist of — 
Wheat . 
133 acres 
Seeds (second year’s 
Oats .... 
89 „ 
for grazing) . 
53 acres 
Beans 
12 „ 
Permanent grass land 
Mangel 
15 „ 
(mowing) 
11 
Potatoes . 
7 „ 
Permanent grass land 
Swedes 
Seeds (first year’s for 
39 „ 
(grazing) 
193 „ 
mowing) 
37 „ 
631 „ 
Do. (second year’s for 
mowing) . . 42 „ 
A five-course rotation of cropping is usually pursued, beginning with 
wheat, oats, or beans ; next, green crop, viz., mangel, swedes, and potatoes; 
followed by -wheat laid down with seeds, which remain for two years. The 
first year’s seeds, which are mown, receive farmyard manure ; the second 
year’s ley is grazed and ploughed up for wheat in autumn, or for oats or 
spring beans. The stubbles are usually steam-cultivated, and lie for the 
winter, and a fine seed bed is thus secured for the mangel and swedes. These 
are sown on the ridge 28 inches apart, some with farmyard manure, and the 
remainder with bone superphosphate or Proctor and Ry lands’s prepared 
turnip manure. The Golden Tankard mangel is preferred, but the Inter- 
mediate is also grown. The mangel is top-dressed with 14 cwt. of nitrate 
of soda per acre. The swedes were raised from a purple-top variety of fine 
quality, selected and improved by Mr. Roberts himself. This year’s crop 
was grown from four-year-old seed, and has come up regularly and well. 
Mammal experiments were being conducted on swedes with phosphatic and 
nitrogenous manures, but at the date of inspection no fair comparison could 
be instituted. The potatoes (8 acres of Spencer’s new), selected on account 
of their quality after the potato trials held on the farm in 1888, looked very 
promising. They were planted on manure in ridges 28 inches wide. The 
wheat, owing to the previous wet autumn, had not been put into the ground 
so well as usual, and had suffered accordingly. The spring beans and most 
of the oats were luxuriant, and the seeds excellent. 
A series of interesting investigations on the formation of permanent 
pastures have been made by the Royal Manchester, Liverpool, and North 
Lancashire Agricultural Society on the farm, with the co-operation of the 
tenant. Mr. Roberts has instituted separate experiments on the subject, and 
also as to the best and most suitable mixtures of seeds for the ordinary clover 
rotations adopted on the holding. The Manchester and Liverpool Society’s 
experiments occupy 7f acres of strong loamy clay which is not sea-reclaimed 
land, and therefore more closely approximates to the strong soils of the 
country generally. The field was thoroughly cleaned and steam-cultivated 
in the autumn of 1885. Five one-acre plots were set out and devoted 
to the trial of five different mixtures of grasses and other seeds for per- 
manent pastures ; three half-acre plots to mixtures suitable for one-, two-, and 
three-year-old clover leys respectively ; and the quarter-acre was divided 
into 45 small sections on which plants of a similar number of different 
kinds of grasses, clovers, &c., were sown as an educational object lesson for 
the farmers of the neighbourhood, and others interested. These were all 
sown in the spring of 1886, and came up well. The cost of the mixture 
for permanent pastures varied from 16s. 9 d. to 21. 10s. lit?, per acre. Two 
of the trial plots contained perennial rye-grass and other grass and clover 
seeds; two had Italian rye-grass and other grass and clover seeds; and 
the remaining one— the most expensive— consisted of the mixture recom- 
