1922.] 



Ploughing and Ploughing Matches. 



1091 



Great Park in 1798 in order to test the qualities of Lord John 

 Somerville's improvement of the West of England double 

 furrow plough against two Norfolk ploughs and one Bother ham 

 plough as ordinarily used on the King's Farm.* The result of 

 this trial was a quite definite indication that the improvements 

 designed by the President of the Board of Agriculture enabled 

 more work to be done under given conditions in a day than 

 could be effected by the use of the single ploughs. About a 

 week later Lord John Somerville's plough was entered in the 

 Petworth ploughing match but did not obtain a prize owing 

 apparently to the fact that it had been damaged during the 

 journey from Windsor.! 



Another interesting competition, the basis of which was a 

 wager regarding the relative merits of the single and double 

 furrow ploughs, took place in Essex in June, 1802. The local 

 farmers had been very much opposed to the latter type of 

 plough, but its backer won the wager and the farmers were 

 converted .} 



Scientific or quasi-scientific tests tended to be overshadowed 

 by contests which matched man against man and team against 

 team. The inquiring spirit, the infinite patience that will make 

 the infinite number of measurements which is science : these 

 were noc long prominent and emerged only at long intervals. 

 About the year 1800 the names of many more societies engaged 

 in promoting ploughing matches appear in the periodicals. § 

 but records of careful tests and trials are infrequent.il In 

 1842, however, the Royal Agricultural Society of England 

 allotted BOO guineas to be awarded as prizes for implements 

 exhibited at their annual show, and in the following year " a 

 great number of ploughs were put to work on Mr. White's 

 farm at Rough Heanor and inspected by the judges. "*! It 

 became the practice of the Society to reserve the right to try- 

 in the field any implement exhibited,** and the Bath and West 

 of England Society later adopted a rule which permitted 

 exhibitors to show their implements actually at work. ft There 



* Annals of Agriculture, XXXII, 154. Journal R.A.S.E- 3rd Series 

 VIII, p. 9. 



+ Annals of Agriculture, XXXII., 154. 



t Facts and Observations cn Sheep, Wool, Ploughs and Oxen, p. 143. 



§ For an account of measurements of draught with a dynamometer in 1839, 

 see Jour. R.A.S.E. I, 140, 219. 



'! E.g. Cardigan: Annals of Agriculture, XXIX, 278:" Sussex, ibid.) p. 587, 

 Manchester, XXXIII, 635; Lancaster, ibid, (329. 



f R.A.S.E Journal, IV. 467. 



** Ibid.) 453. 



ft Journal of Bath an-l We*t of England Soc. (1871) III. p. 197. 



c 2 



