150 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



own. It is well that the world is wide, and fields are so open 

 and the play so fair. 



In looking at the operation of ploughing at the show, it was 

 impossible to overlook the faet that this grand instrument, 

 aside from its use as a plough, is a wonderful thing as a mere 

 mechanical power. In 1424 the day's work of a man in Scot- 

 land was settled by law to be the digging of a piece of ground 

 " equal to seven square feet." Compare this with the work at 

 the exhibition in Danvers, where a man with different diggers, 

 and the help of two oxen only, turns 7,260 square feet of turf 

 land bottom up in thirty-five minutes by the watch ! 



A careful calculator in an agricultural journal says that one 

 inch in depth of an acre of soil weighs about one hundred 

 tons. Of course six inches, (the depth ploughed by single 

 teams,) would weigh six hundred tons. Suppose the team to 

 plough but one acre in a day, and to cut the turn fourteen 

 inches wide, the plough in that case moves six hundred tons 

 14 inches, or 1^- feet. But at a fair speed the team would 

 plough two acres, making twelve hundred tons moved that 

 distance in one day. In what other way could the strength of 

 oxen be applied to procure such results, taking the body to be 

 moved in such a situation as we find the soil ? 



One other topic, wholly incidental, may be mentioned in this 

 connection, which may prove interesting to the leg-aching, boy- 

 driver, who often wishes he knew how far he travels in plough- 

 ing a given time. Mr. Pusey says that " in cutting a furrow 

 nine inches wide, the team travels eleven miles in ploughing 

 an acre." Consequently by cutting twelve inches wide, the 

 travel would be eight and a quarter miles, or at fourteen inches 

 the travel would be seven miles and some twenty rods. This 

 is a small amount of travel, and goes to show that the apparent 

 fatigue of the team when the draft is easy, is only apparent. 

 By cutting furrows twelve inches wide only, the travel for two 

 acres would be but sixteen and a half miles. And when the 

 farmer's fields are cleared of rocks, and Lion ploughs are put 

 into them, the farm-ploughing may become as expeditious, 

 if not so exciting as the match-ploughing now is. And may 

 we not hope for the permanent benefit of our farms, that the 

 mowing machine, together with the plough, will use such an 

 argument for digging rocks, as shall in its consequences 



