10 Next to the Ground 



night, but it would roughen them — delicately, 

 it is true, but enough to make the first morn- 

 ing rounds harder than they need be. 



A left-hand plough in fallowing, makes its 

 own land. Land, it may be explained, is the 

 technical name for the space of ground laid 

 off to be ploughed to a finish. Sometimes a 

 whole field is taken in a land. That depends 

 a good deal upon the field's size and shape. 

 A land needs to be much longer than it is 

 wide. Square fields are cut in three to five 

 lands, the number depending somewhat upon 

 the lay of them. Good land-masters have 

 their fields fallowed or winter-broken across 

 the last breaking — thus if the breaking plough 

 skips a spot going' one way, it will be likely 

 to hit it next time. 



Lands are ploughed in or out, according as 

 the breaking is done with a right-hand plough 

 or a Ipft. This applies to the practice of mid- 

 dle Tennessee only. Taking the world by little 

 and by large, there are possibly as many sorts 

 of ploughing as of religious beliefs. Ploughs 

 are right-hand or left-hand through the placing 

 of the share. If it is set upon the stock to 

 throw the furrow-slice to the ploughman's right, 

 then the plough is a right-hander. If it is so 

 set as to turn the furrow to the ploughman's 

 left, then it is a left-hander. The spread of 

 broken ground is always on the side toward 



