[ 34S ] 



the right or left according as it is placed. When 

 fixed on the right fock, it turns to the left, and 

 vice verja. Thus a whole field is often tilled with- 

 out changing (ides ; for at the end of the furrow, 

 the pe^fant has only to change the turn glebe, and 

 to return in the fame track he came. The fmalleft 

 and weakeH: horfes are generally employed in this 

 work; and I have often feen a woman, or a boy of 

 fifteen, at once holding the plough and guiding 

 the horfe. The furrows they make are feldom 

 more than three inches deep, notwithftanding the 

 lightnefs of the foil. 



I have frequently afked fome of the Rufllan 

 noblemen, why they did not introduce and adopt 

 the Englifli ploughs, which are much better fitted 

 for turning up the foil from its bottom ? The an— 

 fwers I received amounted to this. That in the 

 prefent ffate of the Ruffian peafantry, each man 

 has a certain portion of land allotted him as his 

 own, and another portion he is to till for the land- 

 lord ; — that he has feldom more than one, or at 

 mofl two horfes, which have neither fize nor 

 ftrength fufficient to work the Englifh ploughs; — ■ 

 and that were two or more of them to join, ftill a 

 four-horfe plough would till but little more land in 

 a fcafon than their fingle-horfe ones. But I found 

 the mofl powerful reafon was, that in the Southern 

 provinces, the foil is fo rich as to require it only 



to 



