"FALLOWS" AND WHAT FOLLOWS. 87 



ponderous and august entry of the clod-crusher,* (a 

 new monster in those days,) the first-mentioned half 

 of the field took leave of the other, and as each clod 

 yielded tip its individuality under the potent argu- 

 ments of that most persuasive of implements, the 

 modern fallow went ahead of the ancient, and old 

 Jethro Tull himself would have envied me the de- 

 light of seeing the work of comminution and perfect 

 intermixture which its magic transit left behind it. 

 Never was there such a sagacious or relentless old 

 tyrant in dealing with a clod, as this same Orosskill, 

 for so it shall be named, and right deservedly. If 

 he can't crush it with his elephant foot, he takes it 

 up secundum artem, as & mastiff would a bone, and 

 gives it a squeeze with his iron teeth ; and if that 

 won't do, why then like a bull he tosses it over, and 

 gores it with the next revolution. Clever must be 

 the lump that, after one or two such embraces, 

 escapes with its integrity less broken than to the 

 exemplar of a handful of Walnuts. 



Then came a nameless implement of private use 

 and manufacture a mysterious compound breed, 

 with a grubber for its sire, and an iron hay-rake for 

 its dam, to lift and re-expose the crushed and stifled 



* Crosskill's famous instrument of that name. ED. 



