The Fanning of Cheshire. 
83 
horse, which is changed occasionally if the weather be hot : they 
are much approved of, especiallv in thinly populated districts, 
where hav-makers are scarce. The furrow-presser, although a 
very useful implement when the furrows are not well closed, is 
not in common use, and is perhaps not so much required since the 
introduction of iron ploughs. 
The implement for water furrowing clay-land pasture is worked 
by four horses, and is found useful where under- draining is not 
required ; it makes an opening along the rein by pressure, suf- 
ficiently deep to carry off the surface-water ; and on land where 
the butts are sis vards wide the work performed will be little less 
than twenty acres per day. Fixed thrashing machines (some of 
them worked by steam) are pretty general among the principal 
farmers ; and the portable ones are in very extensive use : the 
latter are let out on hire at 155. per day. Knife and spike 
rollers are also in common use, and continue in deservedly high 
favour. 
Horses and other Cattle emjAoyed in Husbandry. 
Many of the best farmers adopted several years ago the system 
of ploughing with two horses abreast, except on very wet soils ; 
and as the clay-land becomes drained the practice will no doubt 
be extended ; and nothing will tend more to promote such a 
result than the annual ploughing matches in different parts of the 
county, where competitors are not allowed to plough in any other 
manner. 
There are some farmers, in every district, whose prejudices are 
so strong in favour of old customs, that the most decisive endences 
of improvement will never induce them to step out of the path 
they have previously followed ; and such will no doubt continue 
to plough with three horses, and even four, in length, to the end 
of their da vs. Oxen are not used in Cheshire as beasts of draught : 
they were tried by some gentlemen a few years ago, but the 
practice has been abandoned. 
There are seldom fewer than five horses used in the subsoil- 
plough, and four or five in the different kinds of cultivators : two 
in the light harrows for ordinary purposes, and three in the larger; 
but when land is very rough, and requires what is termed the 
" ox-harrow," four or even five stout horses are employed. In 
many of the fixed thrashing-machines four horses are used, but in 
the portable ones, which are always in great request after harvest, 
five or six are required : these machines, when the corn yields 
well, will thrash 150 or 200 measures of wheat per day. 
The horses in Cheshire are not so heavy as formerly, but are 
considered more generally useful for farming purposes. 
A correspondent from the Hundred of Macclesfield says — 
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