PLOUGHING. 131 



will tliresli, winnow, grind and bake tlie grain, and cull, split 

 and braid the straw ? 



At the ploughing match there were in all ten entries, viz. : — 

 three " double teams " of four oxen each, with drivers ; four 

 " single teams," of two oxen each, without drivers ; two horse 

 teams, of two horses each, without drivers; and one team of 

 two oxen, with a driver, entered for the premium for the best 

 specimen of ploughing with the soil and subsoil plough. The 

 Work was done in a manner to reflect the highest credit on 

 those who performed it, and your committee are happy to say 

 that all the premiums awarded are richly deserved. Each 

 team ploughed one-eighth of an acre — the double teams eight 

 inches deep, and the single teams seven inches deep. 



The minimum time occupied in ploughing, (each lot having 

 been previously furrowed out,) was 25 minutes — the maximum, 

 35 minutes. The committee did not, in awarding the premi- 

 ums, take into consideration, at all, the comparative time of the 

 different teams, deeming that to be of no importance. They 

 considered only the workmanlike execution which was pro- 

 duced. 



Hugh W. Gkeen, Chairman. 



BERKSHIRE. 



Report of the Committee. 



The committee on the ploughing-match having attended to 

 their duties, ask leave to submit the following report : — "Where- 

 as the usages of the Berkshire Agricultural Society have been 

 such for more than a quarter of a century as to render it neces- 

 sary that the report on the ploughing match should be made 

 prior to the speeding of the plough ; and whereas a majority of 

 the chairmen of the committees on ploughing have been by pro- 

 fession better acquainted with writing than ploughing ; it is no 

 wonder that the society has heard so much, both in prose and 

 verse, about the beauty of an autumnal morn, the silent gran- 

 deur of Old Greylock, and the deep interest manifested by the 

 many of both sexes that congregate around the field of compe- 

 tition to take a superficial view of the obedient steer that bows 



