HAMPDEN SOCIETY. 225 



field ; seventeen with horses, and one with an ox team. Of 

 most of the teams, the ploughmen were themselves the drivers. 



The teams were well broke, and very manageable, and some 

 were of such marked excellence, that we could not keep our 

 eyes off them. Some of the colts were a little nervous, proba- 

 bly from being in close mesmeric communication with their 

 drivers, especially when they were nearing the last, or land fin- 

 ishing furrow ; but all must have admired the steam engine like 

 vigor and steadiness, with which the older animals went through 

 their work, even to the last shaving. 



The ploughs were of the most approved modern patterns, 

 and every ploughman seemed to be perfectly the master of_ 

 his instrument. We could not, when viewing the beautiful 

 and almost perfect equipment of these ploughmen, but recall 

 those formidable turn-outs, which would have been required 

 to do this work, in the early days of this society. Then you 

 would have seen the farmer's ox and horse teams, hitched to- 

 gether to a formidable wooden machine, covered with broken 

 plates of rusty iron, with two crooked sticks jutting out behind, 

 by which the thing was, by main strength, held down to the 

 work. You would have seen it move, and scarcely move, along ; 

 wrenched right and left, with a giant's strength, to facilitate its 

 winding way through the astonished sod; with the stalwart 

 farmer himself, — no bops were then permitted to touch a 

 plough, — resting half his weight upon it ; his nether extremi- 

 ties spread out to their utmost extent ; his left foot balancing 

 along the land-side, and his right jerking violently and regu- 

 larly into the face of the half-turned furrow, to make it lie still. 

 By the side of the team, you would have seen the oldest boy 

 of the ploughman, armed with a walnut or hardback sapling, 

 selected from the forest for its great length and beautiful taper, 

 with which he would belabor the jaded team, with constantly 

 increasing spirit, and constantly diminishing success ; while 

 upon the nigh horse would be seen the youngest boy of the 

 family, their hope and their pet, raised to his elevated position 

 by artful appeals to his pride of horsemanship in the morning, 

 and already, before noon, become a sore subject, and suffering, 

 before night, the tortures of a thousand martyrdoms. You 

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