PLOUGHMAN AND HEDGEK 25 5 



organised and supervised with native skill, and the 

 luncheon spread by one of them in an old tithe barn bore 

 full witness to an old time hospitality. 



&quot; Speed the plough &quot; ; and in one sense the tractor 

 has speeded it five times over. In the deeper sense no 

 one can utter the wish with the due fervour before he 

 has watched the plough in action in dry weather and 

 wet, on light soil and heavy soil, on grass and on tilth. 

 This great field when we entered it by an unhedged road 

 was rough with stubble and weed and relic fodder crops. 

 When we left it was a uniform rich brown, more neatly 

 ridged than the bark of straight young elm or the tiles 

 of a tidy roof, save for narrow pathways between the 

 long rectangles on which the competitors had been 

 exercising their skill. Two small London boys, showing 

 scuts like rabbits in their ragged trousers, ran up and 

 down inspecting the work. One had said, &quot; I want to 

 be a plough er,&quot; and a very kindly farmer he lives on a 

 farm made famous by Elia had been instructing the 

 two on the signs and proofs of good ploughing, and had 

 told them to make up their minds about the winning plot. 

 They plumped rightly and with decision for No. 27. 

 The wake of one two-furrowed plough showed pairs of 

 lines : that was all wrong. One plough had wobbled 

 and left what is known to the craft as a pig s trough ; 

 and it was peculiarly difficult not to leave such scars for 

 the pan beneath was hard and the soil above it light, and 

 the ploughman complained that the land &quot; swam,&quot; a 

 word as appropriate and racy as most country phrases 

 belonging to the soil- The plough has changed little in 

 the great essentials, the coulter cuts and the moulding- 

 board turns at a curve more constant than the screw of 

 a steamer ; the simple (but not easy) devices for &quot; belt 

 ing &quot; the depth remain much the same ; but the newer 



