A GOOD EXAMPLE.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3838, 23 June 1873, Page 3

A GOOD EXAMPLE.

! By way of improving the farmers of Ireland, his Excellency Earl Spencer has offered a prize of £60 a year, for Bix years, for the best managed small farms in eight selected districts in Ireland. The following is the report of one of the successful farms in competition : — The Pkize Farm fob 1872. "Mr Powell, the tenant, adopts the five course system of cropping, namely : — 1, roots ; 2, wheat or barley ; 3, seeds ; 4 grass ; 5, oats. When this rule is departed from it is to leave the land a year or two longer in grass ; for here, as in most situations, the land is apt to become clover sick, and an extension of the course of cropping lessens this tendency. " Boots. — There is no material difference in the preparation of the landSfor mangels, Swedes, and common white turnips. In the autumn, as soon as may be convenient after harvest, the stubbles are scarafied or broad-shared, twice if necessary, well harrowed, and, there being seldom anything to gather off, left flat until November. As great a breadth of the mangel ground as thero is manure for is then covered with farmyard dung, and ploughed about five inches deep. In March it is harrowed, cross- ploughed, harrowed again, rolled, and left for sowing. About the middle of April, if the weather permits, the land is set up in drills twenty-sir to twenty-seven inches apart, the portion left short in autumn being manured now, in the drills at the rate of about thirty tons of good rofcton dung to the acre, and the whole receives besides a dressing of four cwt of dissolved bones or mangel manure per acre, sown by broadcast drill after the manure is spread. The drills are then split up, and sown two at a time. Mr Powell prefers a mixture of the long mammoth red mangel and the yellow globe (41bs of the seed of the former to 21bs of the latter per acre;, as being convenient in storing, the long roots forming the walls of the store heap, while the round bulbs fill up the centre. On June 14, eight acres of mangels were looking extremely promising, and were being stich harrowed, two rows at a time, by a very neat and easily worked implement, made by Smith, of Kettering. The plants were being well hoed, and singled to a distance of thirteen or fourteen inches, at a cost of 7s per acre, a second operation being usually done for another 4s. The weight expected per acre is forty tons. The crop is stored at the end of October or beginning of November, the fangs and roots being left on, and the top not too closely cut. They are pulled and laid in rows of four drills each for 5s per acre, and are never allowed to remain uncovered over night. " Wheat or barley (according to the nature of the soil and the kind of crop taken off the same ground in the previous course) is planted after roots, the mangel ground being cross-ploughed in the month of November, and the turnip ground stirred, to prevent loss of fertilising matter, as soon as the sheep have cleared a few acreß. With favorable weather wheat sowing begins the first week in February, and can, without risk to the crop, be continued until March. The seed is dressed with sulphate of copper (1 lb to five imperial bushels), and drilled, eight rows at a time and seven inches apart, at the rate of two and a half Imperial bushels to the acre. In April, or as soon as the young corn is able to bear it, all the wheat crop is well harrowed and heavily rolled, but does not require booing. The kinds commonly grown are the CMddam, Nursery, Hallet's, andßiddell's imperial, and the yield per acre is about thirty- two bushels. "Barley, being apt to lodge, requires to be sown early. The first planted receives two and a half bushels per acre, while later in the season this is increased to three bushels. Hallet's chevalier is the favorite sort, and the produce of an acre is usually forty bushels. Like the wheat and oats, barley is drilled seven inches between the rowß. " Clover and graßS seeds are sown by broadcast drill on the barley and wheat afte.r roots, and covered by the chain harrow and roller. The mixture commonly used on an acre of land is as follows : — 4 lbs cow grass, 4 lbs red clover, 2 lbs alsike clover, 1 peck rye-grass (Pacey's), with the addition, if the field be intended to He down two or three years, of 2 lbs to 3 lbs of white clover. The greater part of the seed-shift is topdressed during the winter with lime and earth compost, each acre receiving about fifteen loads, which may be taken to represent one ton of lime. About one-half : the crop is mown for hay, dried in the usual manner, and at the end of seven or eight days carted into stack. The fog, or aftergrass, affords a rich pasture for the lambs in August, and the ewes tup well upon it in September and October. *.' Oats. — After remaining down in grass one, two, or more years, the clover leas are for the most part ploughed for oats. This is done in December or January with Hornsby's two-furrow plough ; the land is harrowed in March, and drilled with three bushels per acre, lengthwise the ploughing. Black Tartar oats succeed remarkably well, the yield seldom being under 50 bushels per acre. The present aspect of the labor question, and the inducements now offered for sheep breeding, have induced Mr Powell and many others besides him, to leave their arable land longer in grass, if not to lay away altogether such fields as may be adapted for sheep pasture. At Eglwysnunyd, a twenty-acre field, well watered, drained, and fenced, and lying furthest from the homestead, is intended to remain down as long as it will graze to advantage. The seeds sown three years ago were only those used in the alternate husbandry, but, having taken remarkably well, and a copious dressing of lime and rich old earth having been applied during the first year there is every prospect of a good sward forming. Adjoining this field ia another of thirty acres, a rather thin weak grave], put down in 1868 with permanent grass seeds (from Messrs Sutton and Messrs Wheeler), at a cost of 32s per acre, 2 lbs per acre of alsike clover being added to the mixture. This field, being at the extreme boundary of tbe I farm, and watered at the lowest point by a copious spring, was laid away many years ago, but having by degrees become foul, benty, and unproductive, leave was obtained to plough it up and put it through a course of cropping, the conditions being that it should be cleaned, manured, and laid down again, entirely at the expense of the tenant. This addi tion to his acreage of grass land, though it may not be permanent, has enabled Mr Powell meanwhile to increase the number of his flock very considerably (and we all recognise, though we cannot estimate, the benefits conferred upon light soils by tbe " golden hoof" of the sheep), while at the same time it has lessened the labour bills. Moreover, as he depends very much for winter provender for his cattle stock on the produce of nine acres of richly-irri-gated and forty acres of well-composed meadow ground, the slight diminution of

the corn crop is less felt than where little or no old land is available for mowing. "The grain crop ia cut with a Hornsby's two-horse reaper ; three horses are, however, commonly yoked where the crop is heavy. The barley, as well as the wheat and oats, is tied, set up in stooks of ten sheaves each, and left unhooded. When the season is wet, " hand mows," that is small conical piles of four or five stocks each, are found highly advantageous. The newly cut corn is gathered by men, women, and boya, employed by the day, and when thoroughly dry, is carried to the stack on well-built harvest waggons drawn by two horses each. The ricke are placed on vermin-proof stone and mortar stands, commonly round, and are covered with machine-made thatch ; and what we saw still standing in February were a pattern of neatness. The grain is threshed out by one of Clayton and Shuttleworth's portable machines, fitted with all the latest improvements, the power being deiived from one of their portable eighthorse engines, which is also made available for chaff-cutting, grinding, root-pulp-ing, &c."