Methoda of Economizimj Labour. 
123 
and portability give them a great advantage in competition 
with ours in the colonial market : the best English ploughs 
(measuring four yards in lengtli) do not admit of being shortened, 
whereas the stilts of an American plough can be taken out, and it 
will then occupy only two yards in length, and the freight is 
consequently reduced to one-half of that of its English competitor. 
The turnover or hill-side plough, which is so generally used in 
the mountainous regions, deserves some notice here. It is so 
simple, ingenious, and useful as to excite surprise that it has not 
become known in England. Its principal use is to plough across 
hill-sides, always throwing the furrow down hill, instead of 
running it up and down the slope, which, besides the inconve- 
nience on steep land, occasions in the rainy season great washing 
of the soil. It is also used on level land whenever it is desirable 
to avoid ridges. These objects are effected by making the upper 
and lower sides of the share and of the mould board precisely 
similar, so that each in turn may form the sole, and fixing it on a 
pivot, which admits of its being instantly thrown round, beneath 
the beam, from right to left or from left to right, and forming either 
aright-hand or a left-hand plough. (See Fig. 2.) Left-hand ploughs 
are used almost exclusively in tliose parts of the States which have 
been settled by Germans, and they stoutly maintain the superior 
convenience of this plan, from its enabling the ploughman to 
guide the furrow horse with his left hand, whilst his right hand 
commands the plough — " keep the furrow horse in the furrow, 
and the plough must go straight" is quite a proverb with them. 
The team almost invariably consists of two horses abreast, which 
are kept at their due distance by a " Jockey Stick," extending 
from the collar of one to the bit of the other. 
The horses that one sees at the plough on these northern 
farms exhibit far more blood and breeding than the average of 
English farm-horses ; in fact, the small farmer's team consists of 
a well-broke docile pair, which draws his " trotting waggon" in 
summer and his sleigh in winter (for every farmer has his carriage, 
and seldom thinks of walking any distance), conveys his crop to 
market, tills the land, and at odd times is clapped into the horse- 
power to perform any needful job ; and by the smartness which 
the American throws into all the operations of the farm, the 
various methods by which he husbands strength and economizes 
time, as exemplified particularly in the lightness of his vehicles, 
which he drives at a trot when empty, he manages to cultivate 
with a single pair far more land than would be thought possible 
in England. Nor do I consider that the objection can be fairly 
urged that they only half cultivate the land and get only half a 
crop : the various conditions of soil, climate, and value of land, so 
different from ours, complicate the question ; but when all allow- 
