Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/508

 500 black-eyed competitor, who was trudging about before us with something like activity.

“Is there ere a one out o’ your parish?” said another.

He, however, got an answer, if this can be called one.

“There’s my brother’s mate out o’ Woodborough.”

But this effort seemed to have exhausted the conversational powers of the whole group, so I joined my fair friends in a canter over the battle-field which was soon to be covered with the sixteen champions of Oakford neighbourhood. Meanwhile the teams were taking their places upon the headland of the field ready to start at the signal of the President.

I have felt the flutter which throbs through expectant crowds when the “Derby” horses are gathering at the post; and with a “pot” on Oxford, have watched the University boats fly from their moorings at the appointed signal. I have also partaken of the anxiety to catch the largest share of wind and tide which agitates the commencement of a yacht race; and therefrom have learned that a start is generally interesting in exact proportion to the time occupied in the match. One cannot expect, therefore, a great sensation when ploughs are to run for five hours, and when there is no possible advantage to be gained by one over another in the start. But for all this, the commencement of a ploughing-match is a very pretty sight. My host, the Squire, seated on his strong horse, and surrounded by his graceful staff—I think ladies never look to greater advantage than upon horseback—stood like a general at the saluting point, on the opposite side of the field to that on which the ploughs were drawn up.

Upon receiving word from the Secretary, who usually unites with this, the office of general manager, that all was ready, he raised his hat, and “Gee,” was the word among the drivers; the whole line charged, four horses deep, and sixteen ploughs were striking furrows up and down in this fallow field. Some of the horses were rather astonished to find themselves in so large an equine company. I wondered what the worms thought of it. They are probably a quiet race, and believers in rest. If they reasoned at all upon the matter, which perhaps they did not (although Mr. Kingsley is telling us pretty stories about talking eels and facetious frogs), a sense of justice might lead them to suppose that having devoured so much which was both great and good, a Nemesis had been sent to unearth and destroy them.

Faint anxiety was manifested by the spectators generally, after the first bout was finished, and some very confident predictions were made as to the success of certain competitors. Evenness is a great virtue in ploughing; if furrows are not parallel, the top soil cannot be completely turned over, or covered in; while, if they are not of equal depth, either the uncultivated subsoil will be brought to the surface, or there will not be a sufficient depth of loose earth.

The time will come, perhaps it is nearer than any of us suppose, when steam-ploughing will be general. No one as yet considers a steam-engine an eligible feature in a landscape; it seems a violent interruption to the settled calm of Nature. The “team a-field” has been the theme of poets innumerable. It is not impossible that some future or  may evoke the poetry of steam; but at present no one who loves the country—because there, Nature is above all, and before all—can view with satisfaction the exchange of the familiar sights and sounds of the plough-fields, for the creaking of ropes and windlasses, and the noisy puffings of the untiring engine. But for all this, I have a high opinion of the advantages of steam-cultivation, which is particularly suitable to a soil like that of this Oakford field, a stiff weald clay, rendered at top somewhat friable by continued ploughings. The impervious nature of the subsoil is the great hindrance to fertility; this is counteracted to a large extent by drainage with rows of pipes placed, perhaps, sixteen feet apart and two deep. But it is evident that the benefit derived from these pipes depends entirely upon whether the superincumbent earth is porous. If between the roots of the growing crop and these drains there exists a hard and impenetrable crust of earth, the pipes might as well have remained in their original clay.

Now at Oakford all the ploughs had four horses, and all were the heavy and old-fashioned, but very useful, Kentish turnrise plough, laying wide and deep furrows; but as they laid the subsoil bare, it was trodden into a hard floor by the sixteen hoofs moving in a very straight and narrow line, and leaving no part which, upon examination, would not be found to be as tight as though it had been puddled. The crop suffers greatly by this, and drainage is rendered to a large extent ineffective. Some few farmers use deep subsoil ploughs, but this is a very expensive process, does not avoid the treading, and often has the effect of bringing to the surface a very inferior and unfertile soil. The steam plough passes over the surface, turning the earth in any required direction without ramming the subsoil, or disturbing those natural channels which surface water has worn through it in its passage to the drains. Miles upon miles of pretty hedgerows will in time be sacrificed to this iron idol; farms will increase in acreage and farmers in capital. The new system will push away the old, leaving, however, many small farmers who will plough with horse-power, and thresh their corn with a weapon the facsimile of that which might have been found on the threshing-floors of Bible history; but these time-honoured usages are doomed to pass out of fashion, and we must reconcile with our notions of rural life, farms become manufactories, and farmers manufacturers of food.

But we are forgetting the Oakford Agricultural Association. However, you will agree with me that there was no use in standing beside the ploughs for the next five hours. I thought I should do my duty by taking a walk presently with the Judges, and finding this was also the opinion of the ladies, we rode off. We parted at the park gates, as I wished to rejoin the President and continue with him the pleasant labours of the day. After riding for a couple of hours over his estate,