HARROWING. 471 



I do not know that I can do better for my readers, than to 

 subjoin the remarks and illustrations of one of the most eminent 

 implement makers in Great Britain, Mr. J. Allen Ransome, in 

 his valuable treatise on the &quot; Implements of Husbandry.&quot; 



&quot; It is admitted, by all acquainted with the subject, that har 

 rowing, especially on heavy soils, is the most laborious operation 

 on the farm, not so much, perhaps, on account of the quantum 

 of power requisite for the draught, (though this is sometimes 

 considerable,) as for the speed with which the operation is, or 

 ought to be, accompanied ; and yet it is frequently left to the 

 charge of mere boys, and sometimes performed by the worst 

 horses on the farm. 



&quot; If we examine a field, one half of which has been harrowed 

 with weak, inefficient horses, and whose pace was consequently 

 sluggish, the other half with an adequate strength and swiftness 

 of animal power, we shall find the former will be rough and 

 unfinished, the latter comparatively firm and level, and com 

 pleted in what would be called a husbandry-like manner. 

 Scarcely any thing in farming is more unsightly than the wavy, 

 serpentine traces of inefficient harrowing. The generality of 

 harrows appear too heavy and clumsy to admit of that despatch 

 without which the work cannot be well done ; and though it is 

 evident that different soils demand implements of proportionate 

 weight and power, yet, for the most part, harrows have been 

 rather over than under weighted, particularly when employed 

 after a drill, or to bury seeds of any kind. 



&quot; Harrowing has been so long regarded as an operation which 

 must be attended with considerable horse-labor, that attention 

 does not appear to have been sufficiently turned to the inquiry 

 whether this labor might not be greatly reduced, by lightening 

 the instruments with which it is performed. Many would be 

 surprised at the amount of reduction of which seed-harrows, at 

 least, are capable, and, where land is clean, to see how effectively 

 a gang of very light small-toothed harrows may be used. 



&quot; Having noticed, in some parts of Norfolk, the perfect manner 

 in which seed corn is covered by a common rake with wooden 

 teeth, a friend of mine constructed a gang of harrows on the 

 following plan, and he states that it proved the most popular and 

 useful implement of the kind to the farm. 



