268 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



cutter, or to a poor team, or the fiiult may bo in the plough- 

 man. Every ploughman has a new trade to learn when he 

 takes a swivel-plough to hold, and some men are very slow 

 to adapt themselves to new conditions. I have often driven 

 three horses abreast for turning over green sward, using a 

 7A Matchless swivel-plough with a long three-horse whiffle- 

 tree or evener. This whiffletree is attached to the plough 

 by a draught-iron set one-third of the distance from one end, 

 and to this short end the pair of horses, with their double 

 tree are attached, while the third horse, with his single 

 whiffletree, pulls from the long end. 



Now, to show you how easy it sometimes is to have an 

 object or an idea pass before one without being noticed, I 

 will give you an illustration of what seemed to me like an 

 extreme case of obtuse vision. 



After ploughing awhile with three horses, and with my man 

 to drive, I was called away, and wanted one horse to drive, 

 so I left the pair at home, and told the man that he might 

 use them ploughing old ground. When I returned at night, 

 a neighbor told me that there had been a good deal of inele- 

 gant language used while I was away. I asked my plough- 

 man what had been the trouble. He said that one of the 

 norses had acted just as mean as a horse could act. She had 

 not kept up within four feet of her mate, and whipping did 

 no good ; and the plough was as mean to hold as the team 

 was to drive. I looked at his plough, and found that he had 

 been usiuff that three-horse whiffletree with the shortest 

 end behind the smallest horse, and the long end hitched to 

 the heavier one, so the light horse had just twice the work 

 to do that her mate had. The land was all in ridges, 

 for going one way the plough inclined to take a furrow 

 about two feet wide, and returning, followed in the last 

 furrow. I asked him why he used the three-horse whiffle- 

 tree for two horses. He said because he could not find the 

 other, and besides, he did not know why it should make much 

 difference. The three-horse and the two-horse whiffletrees 

 were attached when I left them, and he had himself taken 

 them apart when he hitched up to do that ploughing, and 

 yet he didn't know what ailed that plough and that team. 



