SOUTHDOWN SHEPHERD 



vale are enforced to idleness. Drain furrows were 

 not needed, nor was it desirable that the ground 

 should be thrown up in " lands," rising in the 

 centre. Oxen were the draught animals, patient 

 enough, but certainly not nimble. The share had 

 to be set for various depths of soil. 



All these are met by the wheel plough, and in 

 addition it fulfils the indefinite and indefinable 

 condition of handiness. A machine may be ap- 

 parently perfect, a boat may seem on paper, and 

 examined on principles, the precise build, and yet 

 when the one is set to work and the other floated 

 they may fail. But the wheel plough, having 

 grown up, as it were, out of the soil, fulfils the 

 condition of handiness. 



This handiness, in fact, embraces a number of 

 minor conditions which can scarcely be reduced 

 to writing, but which constantly occur in prac- 

 tice, and by which the component parts of the 

 plough were doubtless unconsciously suggested to 

 the makers. Each has its proper name. The 

 framework on wheels in front the distinctive 

 characteristic of the plough is called collectively 

 " tacks," and the shafts of the plough rest on it 

 loosely, so that they swing or work almost inde- 

 pendently, not unlike a field gun limbered up. 



The pillars of the framework have numerous 

 holes, so that the plough can be raised or lowered, 

 269 



