Ixvi 



En/jlish Agricultural Society. 



it as afFording- a great saving* both in time and tillage — breaking 

 and stirring 8 acres per diem with four horses ; and being more 

 effective on strong lands than ploughing, as it occasions less tread- 

 ing by horses, and produces more mould. For the purposes also 

 of slightly paring stubbles after harvest, to prevent the seed-weeds 

 from vegetating, and for working summer fallows, it will doubt- 

 less be found a very effective implement."^ 



The universal Ridge -Plough was constructed by Messrs. 

 Ransome, under the direction of Mr. John Clarke, of Sutton 

 Marsh, Lincolnshire, Secretary to the Wisbeacli Agricultural 

 Association, who has the merit of the invention, and to whom a 

 silver medal has been awarded by the Society. This plough is 

 capable of assuming four different forms, suited to four different 

 purposes ; and although, in most cases, an implement answers its 

 purpose best when constructed for one purpose only, yet in this 

 case the plough v^^ell admitted the variations, and was as perfect, 

 and as well adapted to its several uses in each of its shapes, as if 

 it had been made expressly and only for that one purpose. 



The first view of this plough was in the form of a double- torn, 

 for earthing up plants sown on wide ridges, or opening water- 

 furrows. In the second, a change of the mould-boards was made, 

 and it became a moulding-plough, of a smaller and more hoe- 

 like description, for going between plants closely planted, 

 loosening the soil and earthing them up. In the third it was a 

 skeleton or broad-share plough, to which shares with curved 

 lines were affixed, for the purpose of clearing land from weeds, 

 «Scc. In the fourth it became an excellent expanding hoe, with 

 a double-winged share in front, with curved coulters for cleaning 

 the sides of the ridges, and hoes to be used with or without the 

 coulters as occasion may require. 



A member of our Society, Mr. John Brooks, a practical farmer at Hat- 

 ford, in Berkshire, worked the whole of his barley-land, after tm-nips, this 

 year, with Biddell's Scarifier only, and without making any use of the 

 plough. He went over it twice, first with the chisel-points, and afterwards 

 with the broad hoes applied. The soil is a sandy loam on the coral rag. 

 He states that he never had a better crop.— Pii, Pusey. 



