234 Experimental Inquiry on Draught in Ploughing, 



Summary of Trial. 





5 inches. 



6 inches 



Old Berks 







Ferguson's .... 



. 24 



26 



Clark's 



27 





Hart's 



. 30 



. 28 



FF, swing , . . . 



. 24 



. 26 



Ferguson's (2nd trial, ground trampled) 



. 31 



. 33 



King's wheel .... 



. 35 



. 33 



King's swing .... 



. 24 



. 27 



Rutland .... 



. 29 



. 31 



Ferguson's (3rd trial) 



. 28 



. 27* 



Average 



. 28| 



• 29J 



The Clydesdale horses were greatly admired by all who saw 

 them at work. They unite power and bone with the elastic action 

 of a blood-horse : they stepped regularly together, and were 

 guided by the ploughman, by the voice, almost without the use 

 of the reins. It was generally admitted that no such horses had 

 been seen in our part of the country ; and the excellence of the 

 ploughman was, I think^ admitted to be equally great. I think 

 I may add that^ in the opinion of the bystanders, this land^ usually 

 worked with four good horses in line, might be ploughed by two 

 such horses, in such condition, abreast ; though^, it was said, that 

 it would cost as much to keep the two horses in that condition 

 as to support the four in their usual working state. I am the 

 more induced to think that they would be equal to the under- 

 taking, because the ploughman assured us that it was exactly such 

 land as this, and no other, to which he had been accustomed in 

 Scotland, there called carse-land^, and had ploughed always with 

 two horses : he said, indeed, that it was there rendered somewhat 

 lighter by being thoroughly drained. The only doubt arose from 

 the softness of the unploughed land on which one horse had to 

 walk. As to the draught, it v/as less than in the last trial, though 

 the land was a more decided clay ; and on that ground where the 

 land-horse had a firm footing, the pair had worked apparently 

 with perfect ease. 



Trial Yh-^Nov. 9th. 



Our last trial was made on a very poor damp moory soil, which 

 I selected as being perhaps the kind of ground on which the 



* It may be observed that, in several instances, a lighter draught is 

 marked in the second column than in the first. The occupier, Mr. Brooks, 

 accounted for this variation by the circumstance that the deeper furrovvr 

 was on the north, and the shallower on the south side of the ridge, or land ; 

 the north side being, as he stated, always rendered lighter to plough by the 

 stronger action of the frost upon it in winter. — Ph. P. 



