66 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



a Strong and beautiful team, and practising Mayer 

 beer's sonnatas on his violin, while, without care or 

 effort on his part, the ploughing Avas done in the 

 very best manner. We confess this mode of riding 

 while ploughing would agree far better with our ideas 

 of comfort than that practised by the peasant on the 

 plains of Rome and Naples, who uses a plough, the 

 head of which is a plank pointed with iron, awk- 

 wardly connected Avith a crooked beam, to which a 

 yoke of wild-looking, half-broken oxen are attached 

 by thongs of rawhide. On this plank the ploughman 

 stands, and, by shifting his position, regulates, in a 

 great degree, the depth to which the earth is moved. 



Turn-wrest ploughs admit of having the mould- 

 board removed from one side to the other at the 

 end of the furrow, so that the earth may always be 

 thrown one way. They are similar in construction 

 and effect to what we term side-hill ploughs, and 

 which are so valuable in some situations. There 

 are other places, too, in which such a plough oper- 

 ates admirably ; and it is probable much labour 

 would be saved were such ploughs more frequent. 



One of the most striking differences between 

 ploughing in England and in the United States is in 

 the strength of team required to perform the same 

 labour. Mr. M'CuUough, in his statistical notices 

 of the British Empire, says, " Perhaps the imperfect 

 construction of the majority of the English ploughs, 

 their great weight, and the extensive employment 

 of those with wheels, may be one cause why, in 

 England, a greater number of horses than are neces- 

 sary are employed in them. If we except the coun- 

 ties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex in the south of 

 England, and those of Northumberland, Cumberland, 

 Durham, and Westmoreland in the north, there is 

 none, perhaps, in which more than two horses will 

 not be seen in a plough. In soaie counties, teams 

 of three, four, and. very frequently, five horses, are 

 employed in the tillage of the lightest soils ; and on 



