322 
Farm Prize Competition , 1913. 
the best treatment for each field, and one field, not yet dealt 
with, and very inferior, was evidence of the wonderful 
improvement Mr. Broughton has effected. He follows the 
excellent practice of mowing the same fields year after year, 
instead of alternate mowing and grazing. These meadows 
looked very well, but it is a matter for regret that they are not 
watered ; as they are, they cannot be grazed by the cow T s, and 
the second growth is fed off by sheep which are bought in. 
No cart-horses are bred, but young ones are bought in, kept 
for eighteen months and then sold. This is no doubt a profit- 
able system, given ordinary luck, but of course it entails much 
careful handling on the part of the men. Mr. Broughton has 
a charming blood mare of exceptional substance (a winner in 
India) with a beautiful yearling got by a premium horse. 
Services are got on very favourable terms, and the breeding of 
blood-stock is a fascinating pastime, but, all things considered, 
it is doubtful if this class of stock is so profitable for a tenant 
farmer as some others. 
Mr. Broughton is a noted exhibitor of Cheddar cheese, and 
during the year 1912 the Somerset County Council Dairy 
School held its classes at his farm. The Judges desire to 
congratulate Mrs. Broughton on her skill and upon the state 
of her dairy, in which she herself gives instruction to 
numerous pupils. The milk for the dairy is supplied by a 
herd of about fifty Shorthorn cows. Most of them had been 
bought, but the heifers were all bred on the farm, and were a 
very fine lot. The bull which got them was an exceptionally 
good one to see on a farm of this size, and he was bred from a 
Dairy Show prize-winner. Some of the heifers looked rather 
too much of a beef type, and pointed to the desirability, already 
so often mentioned, of recording the milk yields of the dams. 
Pigs are quite a feature in Mr. Broughton’s management, and 
at one period of the year the farm was carrying ten young 
sows and 110 store pigs for bacon. These are fed on meal and 
whey from the dairy. Another feature indicating the capacity 
to develop all the resources of the farm to their fullest extent 
was provided by the poultry. A large head is kept in movable 
pens, mostly white and silver Wyandottes, white Orpingtons, 
and Aylesbury ducks, but it may be suggested that the area 
over which they are distributed is too small, so thar they are 
apt to foul the land unduly. 
The hedgerows were full of weeds which should have been 
cut, but the hedges themselves were excellently kept. Mr. 
Broughton has recently informed the writer that he has now 
arranged to pay his men entirely in “hard cash,” deducting 
house-rent weekly, and that the majority of farmers in his 
district propose to adopt the same scheme. This is a very 
