March Ploughing with Oxen. 89 



be far too impatient for a kind of labor which is as try- 

 ing to the patience of animals as if it were expressly 

 contrived to irritate and torment them. The oxen go 

 through it in their own inimitably firm and patient way, 

 often dragging the plough against a slope so steep that 

 merely to climb it, without dragging any thing at all, 

 would be in itself an exhausting kind of labor, yet keep- 

 ing up to their work always steadily and well, as if they 

 wore inwardly sustained by the firmest sense of duty. 

 Such is the difficulty of the ground that a light plough 

 requires six oxen to work it, and often eight. There 

 is a certain field on a hillside visible from the Val Ste. 

 Veronique which especially interests me when the farmer 

 is ploughing it, which he does so conscientiously that his 

 example would be excellent if- transferred to the intel- 

 lectual sphere ; and many a student, who finds the 

 ground before him irregular and arduous, would do well 

 to imitate that thoroughness which will leave no corner 

 of it untilled. There is one place which interested me 

 most especially, a sort of cup or hollow just on the edge 

 of the field, so that the forest advanced into the very 

 middle of it, and you could not go down one slope and 

 up the other, which would have been comparatively con- 

 venient, but must necessarily, if you would plough the 

 place at all, take your team of oxen straight into the hol- 

 low, then turn them, and bring them out again up a slope 

 as steep as a house-roof. Would the peasant attempt 

 this ? I watched him the first day to see what he would 

 do, but the question was very soon decided. He took 

 his eight oxen straight over the edge of the hole, down 



