CHAPTEK VI. 



IMPLEMENTS OF THE FARM THE TWAL OWSEN 

 PLOUGH THE SOAM AND TEAM WOODEN HARROWS 

 AND FIR TETHERS CURRACHS THE BOBBIN 

 JOHN. 



IN exhibiting the advanced state of Scottish agri- 

 culture at the present day, as compared with the 

 agriculture of last century, one could scarcely find a 

 readier or more effective method of illustration than 

 that of contrasting the implements of the farm then 

 and now. Alongside the two horse swing plough, 

 fashioned of iron, and marked by accurate proportion 

 of parts, and absolutely artistic finish in the workman- 

 ship, we should have to place the large uncouth wooden 

 implement, devised for the draught of eight, ten, or 

 twelve oxen ; with " beam " so disproportionately long, 

 and " stilts " so relatively short, that collision with 

 some big " earth-fast " stone in the opening furrow, 

 really threatened, at times, to throw the hapless plough- 

 man's heels, if not against the seven stars as a local 

 Munchausen averred, had once happened at the cost 

 of nearly obliterating one of their number from the 

 firmament certainly, to an elevation, at least equal to 

 that of his head. Against the steam threshing 

 machine, with its complete dressing apparatus, there 

 would stand the primitive flail ; and the equally 

 primitive hand riddle and " wecht," for use in winnowing 

 the corn between the open barn doors by the natural 

 wind of heaven ; and so on through the remaining 

 implements of the farm. 



