114 BERKSHIRE SOCIETY. 



ment for the last twenty-eight years, the period through which 

 these exhibitions have been held by this Society 1 Reverting to 

 the rude and chimsy wooden ploughs of thirty years ago, and 

 contrasting with them the polished and life-like models of the 

 present day, we think, for the moment, that we have attained to 

 perfection. But just so, doubtless, did our fathers congratulate 

 themselves on the advances they had made upon the ruder imple- 

 ment of a previous generation ; and just so may the coming gen- 

 eration boast of its superiority to the present, in the same respect. 

 Every age has doubtless felt a self-complacency, in the imagin- 

 ary perfection of its own implements of husbandry, and of its 

 own mode of using those implements : and that in periods 

 when the plough was scarcely more than a gigantic wooden 

 pick-axe, fastened by the handle, with twisted willows, to the 

 horns of the cattle, or to the tails of the horses, and held by the 

 ploughman, when held it could be, by one of its points, while 

 the surface of the ground was only tormented by the lacerations 

 of the other. That this is no misrepresentation of the earliest 

 forms of the plough, may be shown by existing figures of that 

 implement on ancient coins ; and that we have committed no 

 slander on the ancient modes of attaching the plough to the 

 team, we will prove by a penal act of the Irish parliament, 

 passed as late as the year 1634, and entitled " an act against 

 ploughing by the tayle," in which it is set forth that " in many 

 places in this kingdom, there hath been a long time used a 

 barbarous custom of ploughing, harrowing, drawing and work- 

 ing horses, mares and colts, by the tayle ; (besides the cruelty 

 used to the beasts,) the breed of horses is much impaired 

 in this kingdom." So imperfect was the implement em- 

 ployed for breaking up the soil among the ancient Romans, that 

 it was customary to plough the ground from three to nine times 

 over, to prepare it for a crop ; and it was doubtless owing to the 

 same cause, that, during the same period, the Roman farm was 

 limited to two acres, the entire surface of which, as we have 

 seen to-day, a Berkshire ploughman could invert, in the most 

 perfect manner, in less than eight hours ! 



The ancient Norman carried with him a hatchet, to assist the 

 working of his plough, by cutting asunder the more obstinate 



