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ing> it must be presupposed of every well managed farm, thatall obstructions to good culture have been removed ; such asrocks cropping out on the surface, sit-fast and other largestones, brushwood, and springs of water; the proper me-thods for attaining these indispensable preliminary improve-ments, will be found detailed in other branches of this Gene-ral Report. Considering good ploughing as the foundationof improved husbandry, the circumstances connected withthat operation are here treated in greater detail, than hasbeen deemed necessary for many of the other branches ofhusbandry; and the more so, because they have not beenminutely dwelt upon in any of the particular reports, and be-cause the mode of ploughing, followed in the more improveddistricts of Scotland , is considered as peculiarly excellent,being both thoroughly efficient, and reduced to the most per-fect principles of economy and simplicity.
§ 2. Operation of ploughing .—Owing to the constructionof the swing plough, which has its wrest and mould-board onits offside, or to the right hand of the ploughman, the furrow-slice is necessarily turned over to the right hand side. Theoff-side horse walks in the furr, or space left vacant by theremoval of the former plit; the near-side horse walks on thefast-land; and the ploughman walks in the new furr, or thespace which has been quitted by the slice that is now forming.Two gross errors are carefully avoided by all good plough-men : 1. Baulking , or leaving a portion of land occasionallyunploughed ; which is caused by the swerving of the horses,or by allowing the plough to start out of the ground : 2. Al-lowing the furrow-slice to fall back again into the furr, whichis chiefly occasioned by making the slice too broad in pro-portion to its depth, and by carelessly holding the left handstilt lower than that on the right side of the plough. Thislatter fault is most usual when ploughing old leys, owing tothe tenacity of the grassy turf; and, to guard against this, acareful ploughman will often walk a long way with his left