AGRICULTURAL HEIRLOOMS 203 



dry land of East Kent, on stony land, on rough hill-sides, the 

 implement undoubtedly had, and has, its uses. But on aU soils 

 ahke, a century and a half later, the same huge machine, looking 

 at a distance more Hke a cart than a plough, with a beam the size 

 of a gate-post, remained the idol of the men of Kent. In Middlesex, 

 in 1796, it was no uncommon sight to see ploughs drawn by six 

 horses, with three men in attendance. In Berkshire (1794), four 

 horses and two men ploughed one acre a day. In Northampton- 

 shire Donaldson (1794) found in general use a clumsy implement, 

 with a long massive beam, drawn by four to six horses at length, 

 with a boy to lead and a man to hold. By immemorial custom in 

 Gloucestershire two men, a boy, and a team of six horses were 

 usually employed in ploughing. Coke of Norfolk sent into the 

 county a Norfolk plough, and ploughman, who, with a pair of horses, 

 did the same work in the same time. But though the annual cost 

 of the operation was thus diminished by a haK, it was twenty 

 years before the neighbours profited by the lesson. 



The backwardness of many agricultural counties was to some 

 extent due to difficulties of communication. By the creation of 

 Turnpike Trusts (1663 and onwards) portions of the great high- 

 ways were placed in repair.^ Yet in the eighteen mUes of turnpike 

 road between Preston and Wigan, Young in 1770 measured ruts 

 " four feet deep and floating with mud only from a wet summer," 

 and passed three broken-do\vn carts. " I know not in the Avhole 

 range of language," he says, " terms sufficiently expressive to 

 describe this infernal road. Let me most seriously caution all 

 travellers who may accidentally propose to travel this terrible 

 country to avoid it as thej^ would the devil, for a thousand to one 

 they break their necks or their hmbs, by overthrows or breakings 

 down." The turnpike road to Newcastle from the south seems to 

 have been equally dangerous. " A more dreadful road," he says, 

 " cannot be imagined. I was obhged to hire two men at one place 

 to support my chaise from overturning. Let me persuade all 

 travellers to avoid this terrible country, which must either dislocate 

 their bones with broken pavements, or bury them in muddy sand." 

 The tumijike road from Chepstow to Newport was a rocky lane, 

 " full of hugeous stones, as big as one's horse, and abominable 

 holes." Marshall says that the Leicestershire roads, till about 

 1770, had been " in a state of almost total neglect since the days 

 ^ For further details as to roads, see chap. xiii. 



