HIGH FARMING IN ENGLAND.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2650, 5 October 1882, Page 4

HIGH FARMING IN ENGLAND.

[From the "Weekly Press."] The Boyal Agricnztural Sooiety of England held their show this year at Beading, and amongst the prizes offered for the encouragement of improved farming was one of £IOO for the best dairy, arable, or mixed furrow, above 200 aores in extent, within twenty miles of Beading. The competition was so keen that the judges reoommended an extra prize of £25. Prom our Home files just to hand wo have full particulars of this interesting event ; a few extracts from which will afford much interesting information. First, as to how high farming is carried on in England, as compared with the bsst farming in the colony. The matter is worthy of serious consideration, as the circumstances under whiou we shall farm in the near future will not bo eo very different from that which prevails at Home. The export of frozen meat and dairy produoe will soon assume suoh largo proportions that a better class of farming must supersede the old and thriftless one. In other wordß, roots and fodder crops will have to be largely grown for the purpose of keeping up the supply of food neoessary to oarry a large stock through the scarce season. To do so successfully, the land must be carefully tilled, and manures must sooner or later be resorted to, and capital will have to be judiciously expended. In fact, the business of future farmi g in the colony will only be profitable to those who are properly trained to the profession; The winning farm is situated on the Loddon Biver, below Beading, and consists of 225 acres—l4s arable, 65 pasture, and 15 wood —of good land, with a subsoil of mixed clay asd gravel; not too heavy for folding, though the sheep ought to be off the land before the setting in of winter. The total payment of £sll for rent, tithes, and rates indicates the quality of the land. This farm is leased by Mr James John Badcliff, o whom the above prize has been awarded. The report of the judges goes on to say that Early Drumhead cabbage, drilled iu April and covering the ground completely, were the first crops we saw; then some swedes and turnips clean and good, the mangels being just a little patchy ; then peas, whioh will yield a hoavy orop—heaviest, porbaps, on the higher ground, and hardly so well on the lower part, whioh is not much above the level of the river, and is looking this wet season a little soaked. But the beans, sown in spring on similar levels, are just aa luxuriant on the upper level as on that whioh lies a few feet lower. The crop is well podded, and promises an immense yield. The wheat and barley, whioh we next reached, are magnificent. The fields are as full as possiblo, the wheat as tall as a man of six feet, and level as a table. The hedges are neat and trim, and the ooia fills the field olose up to the fence, without an inch of ground being saorificod. Mr Badcliff, seconded by his exoelleut bailiff, Mr Lawrence, has oertainly mads the beat use of the land he holds, and I dare say he has gained many aores of land by putting his hedges in good order. The wheat this year is after beans, swedes, and mangel carted off, and without dung. The lend is in high order. There are 51 acres wheat, 18 barley ord oats, 28 beans and peas, 19 vetches avd trifolium, 10 mangels, 12 swedes, turnips, and cabbages. Clovers have not been sown, in consequence of the value attached to these other crops. Wheat straw, for instance, has been selling at a halfpenny per lb. Then the land is well suited for beans ; and trifolium here in a valuable crop. In regard to the other crops, the leading points of interest conneoted with them are these: the ploughings are few; the bulky crops of the farm do as muoh for the destruction of weeds as several ploughings. Suoh a crop of beans as that in the ground now completely masters other vegetation, and renders even twitoh impossible. The land here has not to be turned over and over again in contention with weeds; and another point is that it ought not to be messed about in winter. In preparing for swedes, the land is ploughed once in autumn and again in spring after putting on the dung, so it gets only two ploughings, The land for mangel gets only one ploughing, which is given in autumn after applying the dung, a subsoil following the plough. It is afterwards harrowed and otherwise worked down in spring before sow* lug the Med.

The lire stock of tha farm consists at present of thirty-seven cows for milk (the produce being Gent to Messrs Huntly and Pa'mer's bi'.euit faotory at Beading), and thirteen other neat stock, including six charming roan heifers, less than eighteen months old, selected from the best milking cows.

The dairy will shortly consist of forty roan co«s, all shorthorns. That is the number which the farm will permanently support all the year round. The oows are very large, handsome, and useful. It would be difficult to find a better herd for profit j and, be it remembered, they excel not only in milk, but Mr Baioliff obtained the prize of £IOO for the beet beast in the Smitbfield show in 1879, and be has several young animals in training now for the Smithfield Club shown. They are not pedigreo cattle, but the Priory Duke, the sire of the young nnimsslo, is by the late Mi- Loney'g Duke cf Oneida 6th, a 5000 guinea bull, out of a common dairy shorthorn cow. It would bo hard to find a better looking or a more promising dairy. The oows are in capital condition, which speaks well for trifolium—the late variety, en which they are now fed. In winter they eaoh get 561 b of mangel, with grains, bran, and pea hulls bought in London. They get, from about May 10th to July 15th trifolium and grains; they.are then put on the aftermath of the grass land, whioh, by the way, is all out for hay, and is sometimes flooded. The calves which are not needed for the herd are sold at a few days old at £2 2s eaoh. The rest of the stock consists of 200 sheep, fattened yearly on the roots, whioh are folded bv December. They are generally balf-breds, the present flock consisting of a cross between Norfolk blaok-faoes and a Cotswold ram. There are ton Berkshire breeding sows and all their progeny. About 100, as an average, are fattened as porkers at about 10 stone eaoh, and sold in Mayfair in Mr BadoluTs own shop. The pigs, like all the stock on the farm, are as good as oan be. Large hogs are not fed here. The piggeries are good—boards within, bricks without, and well drained.

The bill for oorn, linseed cake, bran, barley, maize, oats, middlings, calf meal and spice, and pea halls was last year £796. That for manures, soot, bone dust, guano, and a small quantity of nitrate of soda was £125 for the twelve months,

The work of the farm ia done by eight hones, besides the milk carrier, and the ws-gea of the men are are £4OO a your, the payments being 13s a week for day vaea and 14s for carters. Thero are four cottages on the farm and a good bailiff's houso, and the earth closet system is carried out, and provides valuable manure for the farm. It is very muoh better than the water closet system when well carried out.

The buildings comprise an excellent oow shed for forty cows standing head to head, with a passage between. It is 32ft wide, which is juifc the right width for securing proper ventilation, and there is a thotoh under the tiles between the ratters. An eight horse power steam engine drives the machinery—ohafEcutter, and Dell and Sons'corn mill with French stones, price £IOO. Two barns have been properly converted into feeding boxes, mixing house, &o. In this part of the buildings Mr Badoliff pointed out a darkened oattle box, in which a oow is left in quiet for twenty-four hours after the visit of the bull, and he finds the risk of her " turning" again in her season is reduced. Mr Badcliff has drained three-quarters of the farm at his own expense. It will thus be seen that this farm of 225 aores maintains a stook of fifty horned cattle, 200 sheep, and ten horses. His outlay for rent is £sll, manures and feeding atuffa £798, and labor £4OO, or a total of £1707, equal to £7 12s per aore, to whioh should be added interest of capital, whioh must be very considerable, taking into acoount that expended in drainage an j. other improvements at the tenant's expense. Unfortunately the report does not give the money return from the farm. However, it may be assumed that there must be a profit.