LITTLE GADDESDEN. I93 



England in all departments of Rural Economy, very much 

 of which it is useless to seek for in other books, and has 

 never before been mentioned, far less described. He 

 seems, however, to be too diffuse, and to bring much in 

 that does not belong to the subject, and sometimes a 

 thing is found inserted in ten, twenty, and more places 

 in his writings. The worst is, that one cannot build 

 upon what is said in them ; for he has been too 

 credulous, and has taken as true what false and made- 

 up stories his mischievous neighbours often amused 

 themselves by telling him — of which several persons 

 assured me.* 



Harfningen. The harrowing which we saw to-day 

 in a field near Little Gaddesden, where pease were 

 being harrowed down was somewhat peculiar. They had 

 taken six harrows. Each harrow, which was square, con- 

 sisted of four wooden bars, and on each bar, tra, five 

 iron tines, jarn-pinnar, so that the whole harrow had 

 twenty tines. They had bound all these six harrows side 

 by side, by laying a long pole or ' stang,' stang, across 

 them, and binding them fast to the stang. In front of 

 the harrows were six horses harnessed abreast, one horse 

 for each harrow, harf. With these harrows thus arranged 

 the field was harrowed. A young boy went and led one 

 of the side horses and [T. I. p. 194] another went 

 behind and drove them. They had by that plan the ad- 

 vantage that the field was sooner harrowed, and that they 

 did not require to employ more than two persons for six 

 harrows and horses. 



Jordmon, the soil, was here very loose and fine, so 



* Although Ellis was a charlatan, and did not help to solve the great 

 problem of how to make farming pay, it is probable that, had he been able 

 to read Swedish, he could have recovered substantial damages in an action for 

 libel. [J. L.] 



O 



