366 History of the English Landed Interest. 



horses are usually eraployed in the draught, and yet, strange 

 to tell, the furrow we sow does not exceed four inches in 

 deepness. I have seen land ploughed full deeper with one 

 horse." " In May, 1796, I saw," writes the Middlesex corre- 

 spondent to the Board, " in one day two teams with six horses 

 in each and three men to attend each team, namely, one to 

 hold the plough and two to drive the horses, ploughing with a 

 wide furrow about three-fourths of an acre per day." And 

 the Northumberland reporter animadverts on the prejudice 

 which induced farmers to retain the unwieldy wheel-plough 

 with its five horses when the single swing plough and two 

 horses yoked double would do the same quantity of work 

 equally well and at one-third the expense. Young's statis- 

 tics however assure us that in a few districts a better practice 

 was in vogue. Thus, though on the sandy soils around "Woburn 

 Broughton, "West Drayton, Kirby, etc., he reports the use of 

 three or more horses to one plough, he shows us that on the 

 stiff clays of Howden, Thorn, Kirkleatham, etc., more than 

 two horses were rarely employed. Speaking generally, 

 however, the mixed team of two horses and two oxen was 

 most favoured irrespective of the quality of the soil. 



Young, in his description of the various courses practised 

 throughout the country is not very satisfactory, and here the 

 records of the Board of Agriculture prove invaluable. The 

 practice of bare-fallowing seems to have died hard and the use 

 of the various roots as cleaning crops to have been long com- 

 ing to the birth. On the very stiff and undrained clays sum- 

 mer-fallowing for wheat was perhaps necessary, indeed it is a 

 practice not wholly abandoned at the present day, but, wher- 

 ever the turnip would grow, this old and expensive process of 

 resting the land was unnecessary. Yet at the time of which 

 we speak the clays of the East E-iding were cultivated as 

 follows : — 



1. Fallow (limed). 



2. Wheat. 



3. Beans. 



4. Barley with clover seed. 



