2-913-694 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ploughing in France, 1854. Agriculture in France...is still, compared to our own agriculture [ie British], in a backward condition. A few years ago, in many of the provinces of the South of France, it was in the same state, if not deteriorated, as in the time of the Romans. A crooked stick, shod with iron, dragged by a donkey and a woman, was in common use as the plough. The instrument now used in the North of France, as represented in the Sketch, though much superior to the crooked stick, and even superior to the wheel ploughs dragged by four horses, still in use in some parts of England, is very inferior to the swing-plough used in Norfolk or Scotland'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.