MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 525 



lions in value to our New England soils. This plough cuts the 

 entire under surface of the furrow, from the subjacent soil, and 

 enables the mould board, with the aid of the ploughman's foot, 

 entirely to reverse it. From the elasticity of the meadow 

 sward, filled as it usually is with innumerable roots, no other 

 implement has been found equal to the meadow plough, in the 

 work of reclaiming our meadow lands. 



The use of horse-power, for the purposes of cutting and 

 harvesting grain, for ploughing and other operations, may very 

 probably, before many years, be superseded in a measure by 

 steam power. The idea has been already suggested, and some 

 attempts have been made to carry it into practical operation. 

 It would seem that steam power could only be applied success- 

 fully to ploughing, by running the plough on wheels, as is 

 done in some parts of Europe, and in the prairie plough in the 

 West ; and then that it could not be used to advantage except 

 on level, or nearly level lands, free from stumps and large 

 stones. Some experiments were recently made in England 

 with the plough, subsoil plough and harrow, operated by steam 

 power, all of which are represented as fully answering all rea- 

 sonable expectations. The ploughing took place on old lands, 

 having some dips. In one experiment, four acres were ploughed 

 in ten hours, and might have been subsoiled at the same time, 

 making the amount ploughed nearly an acre an hour. The 

 relative expense of ploughing twenty-four acres, is found by 

 that trial to be, by horse power, $44- 23, and by steam power, 

 $30 75, making a difference in favor of the steam power in 

 ploughing the twenty-four acres, of $13 48. We can hardly 

 realize that it will ever be of practical use in New England. 



After the most judicious selection of a plough, the work will 

 be quite likely to be badly executed, unless the principles of 

 draft are understood. " So great is the difference between an 

 awkward and skilful adjustment of the draft to the plough, 

 that some workmen with a poor instrument have succeeded 

 better than others have with the best; and ploughs of second, 

 quality, sometimes for this reason, have been preferred to those 

 of the most perfect construction." 



Perhaps the object of the Massachusetts State Agricultural 



