1090 



Ploughing and Ploughing Matches. [Mar. 



" The ploughmen of Clackmannanshire," it was said, " from 

 being notorious for their want of skill in tillage, are now 

 reckoned among the very best in Scotland." This was a 

 direct result of ploughing matches. '.' The fields of the good 

 farmers, indeed, appear cultivated like gardens." There was, 

 however, a serpent even in this Eden : in some counties the 

 farmers alleged that the matches tended k ' to make the success- 

 ful ploughmen saucy and self-conceited, and ready to seek 

 higher wages."* It is hard to accept the workings of the spirit 

 of freedom for good or ill. 



In some cases the rules were directed to reducing the 

 number of draught animals and men employed : in the matches 

 instituted by Lord Egremont at Petworth the prizes were 

 awarded for an acre ploughed " in the best manner, with the 

 least assistance, and with the fewest oxen." t Even when the 

 rules were not so definite and the quality of the ploughing 

 merely determined the prizes, the contrast with competing 

 teams could not fail in its effect. Ac the first match at Alloa, 

 for example : — 



kl One of the members of the club had a good servant, who was, however, 

 prepossessed in favour of three horses in the plough, with a driver. The 

 master sent him to make the trial, in hopes of convincing him, and his other 

 servants, of their inferiority; and it succeeded; the whole- of them being so 

 ashamed of this man's work, as to make them ever since reject and give up 

 asking for a third horse, or a driver."';}; 



There was, however, a reverse side to the picture. There 

 w T as a danger lest too wide a generalisation should be based 

 upon the performances under match conditions. Arthur Young 

 suggested to the Bath and West Society that experiments 

 conducted over a period were of more value than competitions 

 in the general use of drills, ploughs or horse hoes,§ while Lord 

 John Somerville stated some years latter that he was 



''not disposed to draw absolute conclusions from ploughing matches, because 

 much may depend upon accident ; besides that exertions might be made for 

 three hours, without much apparent distress, which, nevertheless, could not 

 be maintained for three weeks, and so the public becomes misled. "|| 



Besides open ploughing matches trials were arranged for the 

 purpose of determining the superiority of particular types or to 

 decide a wager. One of the most interesting of these semi- 

 private trials was that held on the Norfolk Farm in Windsor 



* Annals of Agriculture, XIX, 332. 

 f Ibid, p. '511.' • 

 % Ibid, p. 331. 



§ Letters and Communications addressed to the Bath Agricultural Society. 

 (Ed. 1788.) II. p. 185. 



| Facts and Observations on Sheep, Wool, Ploughs and Oxen, p. 141. 



