OP PLOUGHING. 213 



SECT. III. Of Ploughing, and the most advantageous 

 Modes of conducting that Operation. 



THE swing-plough, now commonly used in Scotland, as 

 improved by James Small, from the simplicity and the ex- 

 cellence of its construction, is perhaps the most useful in- 

 strument ever invented. It is cheap, is applicable to all 

 soils and situations, can be worked by two horses or two 

 oxen, without a driver, and is calculated either for deep or 

 shallow ploughing, as the case may demand. It requires 

 more skill in the management than wheeled ploughs, which 

 the farmer may set to any particular depth, and which the 

 ploughman cannot vary from at pleasure ; bat the dexterity 

 which the Scotch ploughmen attain by practice, cannot be 

 surpassed, and such a check is therefore unnecessary. Bad 

 ploughmen, at the same time, may certainly be met with 

 in Scotland, as well as in other countries, but not so fre- 

 quently. To this perfection, the premiums given to the 

 best ploughmen, at annual competitions in various districts 

 of the country, have greatly contributed.* 



* It is perhaps but a just tribute to the first promoters of this scheme 

 of ploughing-matches, to make mention ef them in this work. There 

 may have previously been incidental meetings of this sort, but they seem 

 to have been first established, under a proper system* in the County of 

 Clackmannan, when Mr Reoch, from Long-Niddry, in East-Lothian, be- 

 came occupier of the farm of Hilton, about the year 1780. Mr James 

 Stein, distiller at Kilbagie, who farmed extensively in the same county, 

 (and who employed the late George Meikle to erect the first thresh!^ 



