Ch. I.] 



DOUBLE-FURROW PLOUGH. 



15 



THE DOUELE-FUanOW PLOUGH, 



represented below, as" made by Messrs. Ransome, is mucli used upon 

 sandy lands, and particularly on farms where ox-teams are employed ; it is au 

 implement of such ancient date that it is mentioned by Walter Blythe, who 

 wrote during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, but was not extensively 

 brought into use until it was recommended by some improvements of the 

 late Lord Somerville, whom many persons have viewed as its original 

 inventor. That eminent farmer, the late Mr. Billingsley, of Shej)ton- 

 Mallet — of whose work with it we have given an account in our view of the 

 comparative merits of horses and oxen as beasts of draught*' — says, "that 

 some may doubt the possibility of making the double plough so generally 

 useful ; but he can truly say, that he never yet found an instance where it 

 could not be worked to advantage ; and it is well known that, in the 

 various trials made under the auspices of the Bath Society, on lands of the 

 most difficult nature, the double plough has always gained the prize f." 

 It has, indeed, been recommended by judges, when drawn by four horses, 

 and put in competition with a Norfolk wheel plough — a light Carlisle 

 swing plough — and a common Wiltshire plough — each drawn by a pair, 

 " as the best and the cheapest for general use : " the decision also stating, 

 "that the double-coulter plough had been preferred for the general purposes 

 of husbandry, laying the furrow more flat than the others, and conse- 

 quently more new surface to the influence of the elements, and preventing 

 more completely the growth of grass and weeds between the furrows J." 



Although on light soils it may be used with considerable profit, if the 

 ground be tolerably level, yet if the surface be very uneven, it works to dis- 

 advantage, nor can it be jn'operly employed on land that has not been pre- 

 viously broken up; and it can be of very little use where it is the custom 

 to raise the crown of the ridge considerably above the furrow, since it can- 

 not perform the operations of " gathering or cleaning." Besides this 

 objection, arising from its confined application, many farmers who have 

 given it a fair trial maintain that it does not do its work well, even where 

 the soil and the surface are favourable to its operations ; for it makes the 

 furrow-slices " ride,'' that is to say, they are laid up by it too close and 

 too narrow ; or, more properly speaking, in a field ploughed by the double 

 plough, the two slices which it makes have more the appearance of one 

 slice, with a very narrow seam between them, while every alternate slice, 

 being made by a new furrow, is at a proper distance, and gives a suffi- 

 cient seam. When driven with a team at length, it is also frequently 

 necessary for the horse which is nearest to the plough, to draw it a yard or 

 more at the ends of the land, without the aid of the other horses, which, 

 with a double plough, is a considerable inconvenience ; and as two double- 

 horse_^teams will perform as much, or more work than four horses with a 



* Vol. i., chap. viii. f Survey of Somersetshire, p. 300. 



X Bath boc. Papers. Iiitrod, to vol, Jv,; p. 25, and vol. v., art. 48; p. 471. 



