at the Southampton Meeting, 1844. 
369 
sited at an angle of about 45 degrees, with such truth that they 
could be turned back to their original horizontal bed without gain- 
ing or losing ground. According to the generally-received prin- 
ciples of perfect ploughing (whether they be correct, and equally 
suitable to all soils and modes of culture, or not) it is imagined 
that practice has in this instance closely approached to their fulfil- 
ment. 
When fitted with one wheel, though the work of the plough was 
excellent, yet there was an evident declining from that extreme 
regularity and finish belonging to the first performance. 
When acting without a wheel, or as a swing, an eflFect was 
plainly discernible, and which is directly traceable to the influ- 
ence exercised over the motion of the plough by the motion of the 
draught animals. Tlie floor of the furrows, though cut nearly as 
flat in its transverse section as in the two former cases, no longer 
presented so continuously-even a surface as if fashioned by a tool 
travelling along and maintaining an unvarying plane ; it was wavy, 
exhibiting short, burat, or broken surfaces, and answering to the 
impulses of the animals. Nor was this owing to want of skill in 
the ploughman, as compared with the skill of others who brought 
their best swing-ploughs and their best ploughmen to compete for 
the prize, for the furrow bottoms of the latter were still more 
jagged and irregular. Had the light soil operated upon been in a 
condition fit for autumnal ploughing, there can be but little doubt 
that all the swing-ploughs would have acted better, and that less 
difference would probably have been perceptible in the quality of 
the work ; yet the writer esteems it to have been advantageous to 
the progress of arable mechanism that these trials occurred at a 
period when the merits or defects of the ploughs were prominently 
brought out by the excessively baked state of the soil. On the 
hard land especially (at Mr. Spooner's) " proof of bottom " was 
obtained. Several of the ploughs would not enter the ground, nor 
work to the depth required ; others were continually thrown up 
on the surface ; and some were quickly crippled in one way or 
other. Tlie test was certainly severe, but the merit of any 
plough was proportionably great which could perform good work 
under such circumstances. 
The inquiries addressed to the judges and to the writer have 
been numerous, and very natural, as to how it happened that the 
same plough proved to be equally fit for liglit and heavy land ? 
The explanation has already been partly given by the statement 
of the fact that Messrs. Ransome changed such parts of their 
plough as they deemed necessary to suit a change of soil ; just as 
a skilful workman adapts his tool to the different nature of the 
materials under hand : and abundant proof was afforded to, and 
acknowledged by the judges, that one given form of mould-board 
