construction--to the history of the successive improvements, and to
the discussion of the relative merits of the numerous varieties of
ploughs which have lately been recommended to notice--is drawn up by
Mr. James Slight, curator of the museum of the Highland Society, a
gentleman whose authority on such subjects stands deservedly high.
To this monograph, as we may call it, upon the plough, we may again
refer as another illustration of the union between agriculture and
science. Mechanism perfects the construction of instruments,
chemistry explains the effects which they are the means of producing
in the soil--says also to the mechanic, if you could make them act
in such and such a way, these effects would be more constantly and
more fully brought about, and returns them to the workshop for
further improvement. Thus each branch of knowledge aids the other,
and suggests to it means of still further benefitting practical
agriculture.

One of the most interesting, and not the least important, of those
practical discussions which have arisen since the establishment of
the Royal Agricultural Society of England, has been in regard to the
relative merits and lightness of draught of the Scottish
swing-ploughs, and of certain of the wheel-ploughs made and
extensively used, especially in the southern counties. It is admitted,
we believe, on all hands, that a less skilful workman will execute
as presentable a piece of work with a wheel-plough, as a more
skilful ploughman with a Scotch swing-plough. This is insisted upon
by one party as a great advantage, while the other attaches no
weight to it at all, saying, that they find no difficulty in getting
good ploughmen to work with the swing-plough, and therefore it would
be no advantage to them to change. Still this greater facility in
using it is a true economical advantage, nevertheless; since that