BRITISH HUSBANDRY. 



[Ch. I. 



affortled to mechanism also necessarily occasioned the employment of the 

 best artists, and there can be no doubt that the generality of farming im- 

 jjlenients are constructed with more care, and formed upon surer mathema- 

 tical principles, than those in common use throughout the greater jiart of 

 England. 



That many of these new and improved implements have much lessened 

 the labour of the farmers by whom they have been employed, is certainly 

 true ; but it must also be admitted that the rage for innovation has been 

 carried to such a length, that numberless new-fangled machines have been 

 invented with little else to recommend them than mere novelty, while they 

 have been in most instances so very expensive as to deter formers who have 

 thus experienced their uselessness from adopting anything new. This, 

 added to the notable failure of several theoretic experiments, will, in great 

 measure, account for that dogged aversion to what is called improvement 

 which is attributed to most of them ; and it is hardly to be wondered at 

 that men who are now so severely pinched by the circumstances of the 

 times, and the immense loss which has fallen upon farming- capital, should 

 look not only cautiously, but even distrustfully, u])on everything which seems 

 like change of system. A strong objection is also to be found in the pre- 

 judices of the workmen ; for, when they have become accustomed to an 

 implement, it is found no easy task to drive them to the adoption of a new 

 one. Of this no farmer who has tried the experiment can be ignorant : 

 an instance is mentioned in the Stafford Survey, of one who moved out 

 of Leicestershire, and took some of the ploughs and ploughmen of that 

 county along with liim. " Good work was made so long as those men 

 stayed ; but when they left, they might as well have taken the ploughs 

 along with them, for the Staffordshire men could not plough with them." 

 Arthur Young relates a similar anecdote regarding his own practice; for, 

 when he went into Hertfordshire, he carried with him the same ploughs 

 which he had on his farm in Suflblk, and for three or four years was obliged 

 to get all his ploughmen from that county, as no Hertfordshire man would 

 hold them ; nor was the difficulty overcome until a couple of the natives 

 were bribed to try them, after which they made better work than the com- 

 mon ones of the country. 



PLOUGHS. 



The common plough of many counties is, however, an exception; for, 

 except on soils of a peculiarly deep or flinty nature, which require the 

 strength and weight of very powerful teams, it has been generally super- 

 seded by some of an improved construction ; but before we advert to any of 

 these, it may be as well to describe the several parts of the siciiig plough, us 

 it is called, in contradistinction to those which are mounted upon wheels. 



