140

A. FENTON

Fig. 15. As the sod is levered up, it is turned to the left by a tilt of the caschrom. The upper hand has moved
round to undergrip. The girl is cutting the sod clear alongside. From a postcard illustration.


Wenn der Rasenziegel ausgehoben wird, wird er mit einer Drehung des caschroms nach links umgewendet.
Die untere Hand hat zum Untergriff gewechselt. Das Madchen schneidet den Ziegel der Lange nach los.

ground was level enough and sufficiently free
of stones to permit it to function.
Given previous preparation of the ground in
this way, the rate of work was quite high. In
Edderachyllis, it was said that “one man can
turn over more ground with it in a day than 4
are able to do with a common spade. For a
single man to delve as much ground as will
require 2 pecks of bear seed in a day is nothing
uncommon” (OSA. 1793. VI. 288-9). Another
writer said it could do the same amount of
work as two or three men with spades, enough
for sowing a peck of oats (Walker I. 126-7).
James Macdonald, who was a careful inve-
stigator, ascertained from the Long Island

(Lewis and Harris) and Skye that “12 labourers
will turn an acre of land in a day with the cas-
chrom, and that so completely, that the oper-
ation is nearly equal, in effect of pulverising
the soil, to two ordinary Hebridian ploughings.
Where the ristle-is used, ten men can
caschrom an acre per day.-- The great
advantage of this instrument is, that it enables
the operator to work in mosses, or bogs, where
no horses can walk, and in stony ground in-
accessible to the plough. Many districts of Har-
ris and of Skye would be unsusceptible of
tillage without it. Its superiority to the common
trenching spade, or to any tool which penetrates
the ground perpendicularly, is very great, re-