PLOUGHS AND PLOUGHING. 71 



earth to the surface, would produce the desired ef- 

 fect, and obviate the evils of trench-ploughing. A 

 plough for this purpose was invented in England 

 some six or eight years since, which produced the 

 desired effect on the soil, but which was so costly 

 and clumsy a contrivance (being about fifteen feet in 

 length, weighing not less than four hundred and fifty 

 pounds, all iron, and requiring six or eight horses to 

 work it in a compact soil), that it did not come into 

 general use, though its benefits were incontroverti- 

 ble. Since that period several have been announ- 

 ced, but no one of them seems to have met with 

 general favour. About four years ago, the attention 

 of Sir E. Stracey was directed to the subject, and a 

 plough was contrived by him, which, with some im- 

 provements since added, seems to have left nothing 

 to be desired, so far as the plough is concerned. 

 This plough is thus described, in a letter from the 

 inventor to the editor of the London Farmer's Mag- 

 azine. " I beg to state, that four years since I invent- 

 ed a plough for breaking up the hardpan, as it is call- 

 ed, which lies a few inches from the surface of the 

 greater part of our Norfolk lands, and which is ap- 

 parently composed of gravel cemented by clay, and 

 so hard as even to resist several blows of the pick- 

 axe. I have improved much the construction of the 

 plough from what it was at first. My plough now 

 weighs only one hundred and fifty pounds, and the 

 whole length, from the extreme end of the beam to 

 the extreme end of the handles, is only seven feet : 

 the head of the plough, including the share, is only 

 tv/enty-four inches ; and I can plough easily, with 

 three horses, an acre and a quarter a day, to the 

 depth of eighteen or twenty, or even twenty-four 

 inches. The plough breaks the pan or soil without 

 turning it up : and it is my intention to make use of 

 it for planting trees, instead of trenching the ground 

 for that purpose." 

 In the same Magazine for September last, there is 



