FARM IMPLEMENTS. 85 



the ridges left high, when it was laid down. The sward was 

 thicker, better bottomed, than any I ever saw in America. He 

 sowed about a bushel of grass seeds to the acre, seeding down 

 with oats. For cheese pasture, he valued white clover more than 

 any thing else, and had judged, from the taste of American 

 cheese, that we did not have it. For meadows to be mowed for 

 hay, he preferred sainfoin and ray-grass. He had lately under- 

 drained some of his lowest land with good effect. His soil is 

 mostly a stiff clay, resting on a ledge of rocks. 



The farm-carts were clumsy and heavy (for horses), with very 

 large wheels, with broad tires and huge hubs, as you have seen 

 the English carts pictured. The plow was a very long, sharp, 

 narrow one, calculated to plow about seven inches deep, and turn 

 a slice ten inches wide, with a single pair of horses. The stilts, 

 of iron, were long and low, and the beam, also of iron, very high, 

 with a goose-neck curve. It is a very beautiful instrument, 

 graceful and strong ; but its appearance of lightness is deceptive, 

 the whole being of iron ; and this, with its great length, though 

 adding to its efficiency for nice, accurate work, in perfectly smooth 

 and clear, long fields, would entirely unfit it for most of our pur- 

 poses. On the rocky, irregular, hill-side farms of New England, 

 or the stump lands of the West, it would be perfectly useless ; 

 but I should think it might be an admirable plow for our New 

 York wheat lands, or perhaps for the prairies, after they had 

 been once broken. 



The harrow used on the farm was also of iron, frame and all, 

 in three oblong sections, hinged together. These were about all 

 the tools I saw, and they were left in a slovenly way, lying about 

 the farm-yard and in the road. 



