102 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



but not much. He esteemed bones most highly, and said 

 they did immense good hereabout. They made a sweeter, 

 stronger, and more permanent pasture. Where he had ap 

 plied them twelve years ago, at the rate of a ton to an acre, 

 he could see their effect yet. He took me into an adjoining 

 field which, he said, was one of the best pastures in the village. 

 It had been ploughed in narrow lands, and the ridges left 

 high, when it was laid down. The sward was thicker, better 

 bottomed, than any I ever saw in America. He sowed about 

 a bushel of grass seeds to the acre, seeding down with oats. 

 For cheese pasture, he valued white clover more than any 

 thing else, and had judged, from the taste of American 

 cheese, that we did not have it. For meadows to be mowed 

 for hay, he preferred sainfoin and ray -grass. He had lately 

 underdrained some of his lowest land with good effect. His 

 soil is mostly a stiff clay resting on a ledge of rocks. 



The farm-carts were clumsy and heavy (for horses), with 

 very large wheels with broad tires and huge hubs, as you 

 have seen the English carts pictured. The plough was a very 

 long, sharp, narrow one, calculated to plough about seven 

 inches deep, and turn a slice ten inches wide, with a single 

 pair of horses. The stilts, of iron, were long and low, and 

 the beam, also of iron, very high, with a goose-neck curve. 

 It is a very beautiful instrument, graceful and strong ; but its 

 appearance of lightness is deceptive, the whole being of iron ; 

 and this, with its great length, though adding to its efficiency 

 for nice, accurate work in perfectly smooth and clear, long 

 fields, would entirely unfit it for most of our purposes. On 

 the rocky, irregular, hill-side farms of New England, or the 

 stump lands of the West, it would be perfectly useless ; but 

 I should think it might be an admirable plough for our New 

 York wheat lands, or perhaps for the prairies after they had 

 oeen once broken. 



