Plow.
1. (
Agriculture.) An implement for making a furrow in land, the object being to stir the soil, make a bed for seed, cover seed, hill up earth to crops, lay out lines for planting trees or shrubs, and for other purposes, according to construction.
Excepting in the sacred records of the period before the flood, history gives no account of a time when man was destitute of the
hoe and the
plow. The history of one of these is the history of the other, for they had a common origin.
In the distant past they were all of wood, and differed little except in size.
We may safely assume that the hand implement preceded that drawn by animals.
The original hoe was a forked limb (
a,
Fig. 3821). This, being shaped a little, and the
tusk being pointed, formed a plow (
b).
Byron refers to the plowshare by this name in his account of the storming and sacking of Ismail on the
Danube, where
Suwarrow swears, —
That shortly plow or harrow
Shall pass o'er what was Ismail, and its tusk
Be unimpeded by the proudest Mosque.
Don Juan.
c d are other shaped limbs in which the lower piece is formed so that its sole may run
on the ground and turn a furrow, and not merely scratch the soil.
e is an ancient Etruscan plow from an urn.
f g are Japanese plows in the Smithsonian Institution; they show two degrees of ingenuity in advance of the other examples
The images of
Osiris are represented with a plow grasped in each hand, and a harrow slung over the shoulder by a cord.
See harrow
“
Osiris taught the way and manner of tillage and good management of the fruits of the earth.
Isis found out the way of cultivating wheat and barley, which before grew here and there in the fields, among the common herbs and grass, and the use of them was unknown.” — Diodorus Siculus.
The early deifications were many of them of individuals who had opened up sources of agricultural prosperity.
Isis was the Greek
Ceres; Osiris became
Bacchus, the
Father Liber of the erudite Pliny
The great efficiency of the engineering works believed to have been executed by
Sesostris, about 1800 B. C., indicates a great progress in the agriculture to which this scheme of irrigation was subservient.
The alluvium of the
valley of the Nile, however, never was plowed in the manner we consider essential to good husbandry on our soils.
Some of the Egyptians lightly run over the surface of the earth with a plow, after the water is fallen, and gain a mighty crop without any great cost or pains. — Diodorus Siculus (60 B. C.).
The paintings in the
Memphis pyramids show plows with one and others with two handles.
It cannot be said that they pos-
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sess a mold-board; they rather resemble our shovel-plow, and by going over the ground a sufficient number of times would have put light alluvial soil in a fair state of tilth to a depth of five inches. In the rich
valley of the Nile, which receives an annual deposit of silt, a plow of this kind would produce its maximum effect.
Poor as they are, they are substantially similar to those used at the present day in the greater part of
Europe, as may be seen by a comparison of the plows in
Fig. 3821.
h is an ancient plow copied from
Niebuhr, and is stated by him to be similar to the implement used to this day in
Egypt and
Arabia With such tools, it was no wonder that
Rome and
Constantinople depended upon the alluvial valley of
Egypt.
i j are two wheeled-plows from
Caylus's collection of
Greek antiquities, and
k is from an ancient Sicilian medal illustrated by
Lasteyrie.
l is a modern plow of
Castile, and
m is the plow now used in
Sicily.
It is hardly as good a one as that shown at
k, which is a plow of the Greek occupation over 2,000 years since, before
Syracuse fell under the attack of
Marcellus, 212 B. C. It still lacks the mold-board.
n shows the modern Roman plow, with a broad flat share.
The diverging wings form a wedge which divides and turns over the soil to some extent.
The plowman stands on the rear portion of the sill-piece and holds on by the post, adding his weight to increase the depth of furrow.
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Plows, ancient and modern. |
This, perhaps, is the pioneer of sulky plows and buggy plows, as we of the
West call them.
o is from
Strutt's plates of ancient dresses, and indicates the appearance of the Anglo-
Saxon plow and plowman of the eighth century.
From the foregoing and those shown in the next figure, and a comparison of others for which we have no room here, it appears that the ancient
Egyptian, Etruscan,
Syrian, and
Greek plows were equal to the modern plows of the
South of
France, part of
Austria,
Poland,
Sweden,
Spain,
Turkey,
Persia,
Arabia,
India,
Ceylon, and
China.
The last thirty years may have worked a partial change, but not sufficient to invalidate the general truth of the statement.
The ancient Etruscan plow, for instance, was probably as good an implement as the one now used by the peasantry of the Arno, — the same territory.
In
Fig. 3822,
a is a group from
Beni-Hassan, and of about the date of Osirtasen, who is considered by
Wilkinson to be contemporary with Joseph; he who stored grain during the seven years when the
Nile exceeded its usual hight; when
Osiris came forth with more than wonted vigor and spread beyond the usual cultivated area.
The group has three men; the oxen are yoked by the horns, — a mode which is occasionally seen, but not so commonly as the neck-yoke.
The plowman is assisted by a driver, and is followed by a man with a hoe, who breaks the clods.
In some cases the plowman had a whip or goad, and no driver.
Cows were much employed in plowing; men and asses also.
Horses, never.
Another form of the ancient
Egyptian plow is shown at
b in the accompanying cut. The presentation of the share is different, much like our shovel-plow, but instead of connecting the stilts to the beam and having a pair of handles proceeding therefrom, the man grasps a stilt in each hand Reins were not used in plowing in ancient
Egypt, but are not uncommon in modern
Egypt.
An illustration of the modern
Syrian plow (
d) is given to afford means of comparison.
The share and moldboard in this more nearly resemble our form than do those of any other Eastern plow.
The drawing is from Kitto.
It is probable that his artist has improved on the original.
Figure
c gives views of two yokes and the details of the modern
Syrian plow As before stated, it is rather of the shovel-plow order.
The goad has a shovel at one end for clearing dirt from the share.
Osiris has the supremacy in all the deifications of ancient
Egypt.
Who he was that came to he so honored for his usefulness, that scores of centuries only added to his great fame, is now a matter of conjecture.
He is represented with the instruments of tillage, and it is a reasonable supposition that he introduced great practical improvements in husbandry among this people of the
Nile.
As time rolled on. the name came to be transferred to the river itself, and
Osiris the benefactor became a god, and the incarnation of the flood whose annual overflow was the life
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of the land.
No flood, no food; let the
Nile stay within his banks for a few years, and the granary of the ancient world becomes a desert.
Abraham went down there to buy bread; Isaac started for the same place for the same purpose, but put up with Abimelech at
Gerar; Jacob and his family were saved alive in
Egypt during another drouth, from which even
Egypt was not exempt.
Year by year, for seven years, to follow the metaphor of the people,
Osiris (the
Nile) rose in his vigor, and spread himself upon
Isis (the cultivated soil), causing her to bring forth abundantly.
In the excess of his virility he even embraced Nephthys (the barren ground of the desert adjacent to that cultivated), causing her to yield a fruitage.
“And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls.”
Then followed a succession of years during which the overflow was stinted in quantity, and the land, missing its usual top-dressing, refused to repay the toils of the husbandman.
The periodical rise of the
Nile commences about the first of June, continues for three months, remains stationary about twelve days, and then as gradually subsides.
The rise is greatest in
Upper Egypt, and less toward the month of the river.
The rise was less at former periods than now. In the time of
Moeris, it is said that eight cubits were sufficient; fifteen or sixteen were required in the time of
Herodotus, 456 B. C. At the present day eighteen cubits is considered the lowest inundation at
Cairo.
In the time of Pliny (A. D. 70) twelve cubits were a famine, thirteen scarcity, fifteen safety, sixteen plenty.
At the present day eighteen cubits in the lowest, and at this hight the canals are cut, and distribution commences; nineteen cubits are tolerable, twenty adequate, twenty-one excellent, twenty-two abundant, and twenty-four ruinous to the houses and stores which are overflowed thereby.
The rise toward the
Rosetta and
Damietta mouths may be about four feet.
The amount of mud left by the retiring
Nile raises the cultivatable soil of
Egypt about six inches in a century, at Elephanta.
The land at that point has been raised about nine feet in one thousand seven hundred years; at
Thebes about seven feet, and less toward the
Delta.
Many of the sites of antiquity are now buried, together with all kinds of debris lost and forgotten during the scores of centuries the river has rolled north to the Mediterranean, and annually rejuvenated the strip of land between the
Eastern and Lybian Deserts.
The cultivated land is gradually encroaching on the barren margin, except at points where the winds cross the mountain barriers, and bring deluges of sand from the desert.
Buildings and monuments originally erected on the barren land outside of cultivation have now a depth of many feet around their bases.
The form of the ancient share is indicated by the words of Isaiah and Micah,
Beat your swords into plowshares.
The change would consist in flattening a portion to enable it to throw the soil laterally, and then attaching the hilt to the stock at the most efficient angle.
Had the comparison been made in our times, the change of “the sword to a colter” might have been suggested.
While
Saul the son of Kish was yet a young king and was the head of a little band in
Gilgal, 1093 B. C., the Israelites, who had no smiths, “went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share and his colter, and his axe and his mattock.” — 1 Samuel XIII. 20.
But little metal was used in ancient plows, and the statement is also true of those of later date made of the old forms.
It is even within the memory of some of us that wooden moldboards were used.
The beasts of draft of old time were oxen and asses, but it was forbidden by the Hebrew law to plow an ox and an ass together.
The mode of plowing was to make a second furrow just alongside of the one last made; having no mold-boards they did not throw up in
lands, as we do. This mode gave its name to the mode of writing in the time of
Solon (
boustrophedon), in allusion to the writing of the lines alternately to the right and left, and left and right, and so on. This was in the transition of the language, when the people were changing from the mode of writing of the Phoenicians, from whom they received their alphabet, — not language, — from right to left, and were by the
boustrophedon compromise approaching the mode adopted by almost all of their allies of the Aryan race.
See
Fig. 3613, page 1655.
The usual team was a yoke of oxen, but the yoke was also used if other animals were employed.
Even the harnessing of horses in
Egypt and Mesopotamia was by a yoke.
See har-ness; chariot. A pair of oxen was sufficient for the light implement; and when we read of “Elisha, the son of Shaphat, plowing with twelve yoke before him, and he with the twelfth,” we are to understand that twelve teams and plows were in the field.
The unit of measurement of farming land was the quantity (
jugerum) that
a yoke (
juger) of oxen would plow in a day; and we read of a time centuries before the period assigned to
Romulus, that Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed “twenty men within as it were half the space which a yoke of oxen might plow” in a day. About one hundred and eighty years after the times of the scrimmage “over against Micmash,” we find Hesiod writing about his farm in Boeotia and farming matters in general.
These primitive plows must have been peculiarly inefficient in his land, which he describes as “bad in winter, hard in summer, and never good.”
The enthusiasm about
Mount Helicon was and is exotic.
Hesiod's recommendation to have an extra plow for use in case of accident seems well placed.
With such a tool it is no wonder the comparison was made in Luke IX. 62, of the worthlessness of the plowman who looked back in the middle of a furrow.
Hesiod for himself, and Pliny, quoting from “heroic, Stoic
Cato the sententious,” say, “Never stop in a furrow, but drive right on.”
The same thing is often said in our own day in laying out lands or running off corn-ground, “Look ahead and do not try to true your furrow by looking back.”
This is true in fact, and in metaphor, as cited by the recorder, “the beloved physician,” and by him of
Tarsus, the epistolarian.
Varro mentions the double mold-board for ridging, and Pliny the single mold-board for covering the seed.
It does not appear, however, that the mold-board was common at that time.
“The plowman,” says Hesiod, “must be well fed, go naked in summer, rise and go to work very early, have an annual feast, proper rest, and for winter have a coat of kid-skins, worsted socks, and ox-hide boots.”
A good plowman, in the time of
Columella (about A. D. 50), was worth about $300, or the price of eight acres of good land.
The interest on money was about six per cent per annum at that time; the rate was fluctuating, and not legally prescribed.
A good yield from the land at this time was 21 to 32 bushels of wheat per acre.
In
Varro's time (50 B. C.) wheat was worth from 32 to 44 cents per bushel.
For convenience, the figures are rendered into our currency and measures.
In
Columella's time, wheat was worth $1.68 per bushel in
Rome.
Money invested in land yielded about four per cent per annum, and the land was worth twenty-five years purchase, or twenty-five times its rental.
Agriculture declined from the time of
Cato to that of Pliny.
The best of the memoranda on husbandry compiled by the latter are from
Cato and
Varro.
It revived in the part of
Gaul called
Rhaetia, where reaping-machines were running in the first century A. D., as recorded by Pliny, and subsequently referred to by
Palladius.
The latter describes them in his “De re rustica,” about A. D. 350, as driven by oxen and harvesting fields in one day. See reaping-machine.
From these authors we also find that the Gauls had moldboard plows, with and without wheels; ate good wheaten yeastraised bread, “lighter,” says Pliny, “than we have in
Rome” ; and this although the Romans dug down the chalk-hill Leucorgeum, between
Naples and Puteoli, to get an artificial whitening.
Pliny says (A. D. 79): “Plows are of various kinds.
The colter is the iron part that cuts up the dense earth before it is broken into pieces, and traces beforehand by its incisions the future furrows, which the share, reversed, is to open with its teeth.
Another kind, the common plowshare, is nothing more than a lever furnished with a pointed beak: while another variety, which is used in light, easy soils, does not present an edge projecting from the share-beam throughout, but only a small point at the extremity.
In a fourth kind, again, this point is larger and formed with a cutting edge, by the agency of which implement it both cleaves the ground and, with sharp edges at the sides, cuts up the weeds by the roots.
There has been invented at a comparatively recent period.
in that part of
Gaul known as
Rhaetia a plow with the addition of two small wheels, and known by the name of ‘plaumorati.’
The extremity of the share in this has the form of a spade: it is only used, however, for sowing in cultivated lands and upon soils which are nearly fallow.
The broader the plowshare, the better it is for turning up the clods of earth.”
The action and object of plowing were well understood by the old
Romans.
As stated in the “Georgics,” the purpose is to pulverize the soil, expose it to the atmosphere and keep down weeds.
Stiff soil was plowed four times for wheat; broken in spring, cross-plowed in summer, and twice in September.
Richer ground was plowed three times, the earlier September plowing being omitted.
Poor ground was only plowed twice for a wheat crop.
They understood summer fallowing.
Deep plowing was recommended.
A day's work in good soil was one
juger, equal to four fifths of an English acre.
The modern plow with a share and mold-board intended to run in a certain track and lift a furrow-slice, which it upset against the previous one or completely reversed, seems to have been unknown till quite late times.
The improvements of the last hundred years are probably greater than those of the previous thousand, and the tool is regarded as about perfect.
Any great advances will now consist in the adaptation of machinery as a motor.
A number of forms are to be cited presently.
It would seem that until the time of the dearth in
Egypt, 1708-12 B. C, the land was held by proprietors in fee; but under the skillful financiering of Joseph it reverted to the crown, the people thereon going into vassalage also.
“Behold,” says Joseph, “I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh.”
Thus the nation became changed from freeholders to lease-holders.
The king's share was thereafter one fifth of the crop.
This was for grain; for wine, the practice in a neighboring country was the reverse.
“Thou, O Solomon, must have one thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.”
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Strabo says that in
India the rent was one fourth of the produce.
Evidence before committees of the
British House of Commons, in 1814 and 1821, showed that the
English rent was about the same.
The
hectemorii, poor Greeks who cultivated the fields of the rich, only received one sixth of the produce before the time of
Solon.
The
politor, or renter of land under the
Roman system, received from one fifth to one ninth of the produce; the landlord bearing all expenses, the tenant finding the labor.
All on the farm, stock, tools, tools, and seed, belonged to the landlord; the tenant was a workman.
The modern system, where the landlord finds tools and fixtures, the tenant everything else, was not generally practiced in early Roman times, although the
coloni, described by
Columella, held under a tenure nearer the modern; but the amount of the landlord's share, being from four fifths to eight ninths of the product, shows the relation of the tenants was a base and slavish one.
In most cases the slavery was destitute of even a flimsy pretext, and the peasantry were serfs on the land.
Of course the custom of different provinces and of the regions nearer home differed in different times and places.
The food of the
Roman farm-servants was according to exposure and kind of work.
Those who worked in fetters had four Roman pounds of bread per day in winter, equal to forty-seven ounces avoirdupois; five pounds in summer till the figs came in, when it was reduced to four pounds.
The grade of slaves who were not fettered had one bushel of wheat a month in winter and five pecks in summer.
Wine was allowed at the rate of forty-eight to sixty gallons a year; say a gallon a week.
After the vintage,
lora was used
ad libitum. This was made by pouring water upon the pressed stalks and skins an I re-pressing the cheese.
The servants had also rations of
olive-oil.
The farm-servant also received a coat and a gown three and a half feet long, once in two years. Most of the inhabitants of
Europe were serfs down to the sixteenth century.
This is true, as to time, of a very large number of the peasantry of
England, and the poor-laws of that country perpetuate it to a great extent.
Excepting as to
Russia, and to parts of
Turkey, — the latter might as well be counted out as an anachronism on the face of
Europe, — slavery survived longest in
Scotland, where it was extinguished within the memory of people yet living.
It was succeeded by eviction and deportation, which are no great improvement and are now the order of the day. The Scotch lord has no more bowels than
Cato, who recommended to sell old and diseased slaves.
The poorlaw guardians, lacking a market, pay a bonus for their removal, and call it
emigration.
In
Lombardy the landlord pays taxes and makes repairs; the tenant provides cattle, implements, seed, and labor, and gives one half the produce to the landlord.
In the
Neapolitan territory the landlord has two thirds the produce.
In
Ohio and neighboring States the landlord receives one third.
In
Japan he receives one sixth.
The grain or produce rent, in contradistinction to the cash rent, is the more common mode of tenure throughout the Continent of
Europe.
In
England it is on a cash basis.
That country is rapidly drifting into the hands of a few proprietors.
Thanks to the much-maligned
French Revolution, the land of
France is held in small freeholdings.
The Hebrew land polity is the best yet.
Passing over a long interval, we find that the modern plow originated in the
Low Countries, so called.
Flanders and
Holland gave to
England much of her husbandry and gardening knowledge, field, kitchen, and ornamental.
Blythe's “Improver improved,” published in 1652, has allusions to the subject.
Lummis, in 1720, imported plows from
Holland.
James Small of
Berwickshire, Scotland, made plows and wrote treatises on the subject, 1784.
He made cast-iron mold-boards and wroughtiron shares, and introduced the draft-chain.
He made shares of cast-iron in 1785.
The importation of what is known as the “
Rotherham” plow was the immediate cause of the improvement in plows which dates from the middle of the last century.
Whether this name is derived from
Rotterdam cannot now be determined
The American plow, during the colonial period, was of wood, the mold-board being covered with
sheet-iron or plates made by hammering out old horseshoes.
Jefferson studied and wrote on the subject, to determine the proper shape of the mold-board.
He treated it as consisting of a lifting and an upsetting wedge, with an easy connecting curve.
Newbold of
New Jersey, in 1797, patented a plow with a mold-board, share, and landside all cast together.
Peacock, in his patent of 1807, cast his plow in three pieces, the point of the colter entering a notch in the breast of the share.
Jethro Wood of
Scipio, N Y., patented improvements in 1819, and made the best plows up to date.
He met with great opposition and then with much injustice, losing a competence in introducing his plow and fighting infringers.
The peculiar merit of his plow consisted in the mode of securing the cast-iron portions together by lugs and locking pieces, doing away with screw-bolts and much weight, complexity, and expense.
It was the first plow in which the parts most exposed to wear could be renewed in the field by the substitution of cast pieces.
Plows in Britain are divided into
swing-plows and
wheelplows: the former being without wheels.
a b in the annexed figure give the appearance in side view and plan of the Wilkie, Scotch,
wheel-plow; the difference between it and ours is mainly in the greater length of the stilts or handles and the shape of the beam.
It is usually made of iron.
The mold-board is rather long and twisted, but this may vary with its adaptation to sod or stubble A plow like that made by
Gibbs of
Canton, Ohio, will do either well.
His mold-board is of such a shape that it may be molded on a cylindrical former.
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Plows. |
The Scotch
wheel-plow c has a forward carriage to regulate the depth of furrow, one wheel running on the land and the other in the furrow.
They seem generally to have that wedgeformed, convex shape to the front portion of the mold-board, which with their long handles constitutes their most peculiar feature in our eyes.
The long handles give the plowman great command, and if he were to ride on the handles as we do on ours in going over a cradle-knoll he would throw the share clean out of the ground.
They will not be in favor except in countries long subdued to cultivation, as they take so much room to turn.
We like a short plow, and hitch the team as close to the work as possible.
This matter of hitching close was well illustrated during the late war. The old rambling way of hitching up a six-mule team with six feet distance between the pairs was discarded, and their traces and fifth chains were shortened in, so that they could almost browse upon the tails of the span in advance, — as they did in fact.
The old stiff tongue fourteen feet long.
and the spans hitched up two or three paces apart, remind one of the practice not yet quite exploded in
England, of hitching three horses, tandem fashion, to a plow, which was universal till
Dawson of Frogden,
Scotland, about 1770, showed how to place them abreast, for which the
British farmers owe him a debt of gratitude, and after trying it fifty years to make sure it was all right, are prepared to pay on demand.
At the latter end of the eighteenth century, the level lands of Herefordshire and
Radnorshire, Great Britain, were turned by plows which were rigged with wheels to obviate the necessity of a plowman.
As usual at that time, the horses were hitched tandem, one ahead of the other, to the extent of three or four.
A publication of that day (Housman's Travels, 1799) compares it with the superior husbandry of
Norfolk.
where horses were hitched abreast.
The same writer states as follows:---
“I to-day observed a farmer sowing wheat near Abergavenny; a yoke of eight oxen were drawing one plow, attended by two men, one to drive the cattle and the other to manage the plow.
Another yoke of eight oxen were drove up and down the ridges after plowing, in order to sodden or compress the earth. — an unnecessary operation.
The farmer valued these oxen at £ 11 each, one with another.
Their motion was extremely slow, and consequently little work was done in a day. In the same field, one man was sowing wheat and another harrowing with three horses, while the master sat on horseback directing the several operations of this posse.”
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Hitching horses by the tails to plows, harrows, and other implements was forbidden in
Ireland by law in 1634.
See harrow.
In the
United States we generally prefer a plow without a wheel, in
England called a
swing-plow. If this be rightly constructed and adjusted, and the team be properly hitched and even-pulling, the plow will keep a level sole and throw an even furrow in level ground, requiring merely casual assistance from the plowman.
The writer has used swing-plows in
Ohio in clover sod, going round and round the field or the
land, and no person touching the plows except to turn them at the corners.
To those not familiar with the practice, it will be well to state, that in plowing sod the whole field is frequently thrown into one land.
The Ohio plow is generally left-handed, that is, throws the furrow to the left; the near horse walks in the furrow, and the team is turned “gee” at the corners, 90° if it be a rectangular field.
After numerous careful trials of implements by the Agricultural Society of
England, the committee determined that the wheeled plows had the advantage in point of lightness of draft, the difference amounting to from 10 to 20 per cent.
Plows with anti-friction wheels behind the shares were invented almost simultaneously in
England and
Scotland, 1813– 15.
Wilkie's (Scotch) plow
d of this class was invented in 1825.
The wheel is journaled to run in the interval between the mold-board and landside, and answers in place of a sole, lessening the friction to a considerable extent.
Wilkie's first plows of this description had a wheel whose flat rim ran upon the bottom of the furrow.
In the one illustrated (Fig.
3823), the wheel has an inclination of 30°, and follows in the angle made by the colter and share, which is found to ensure greater steadiness.
The gain in draft on some plows by addition of the wheel has been proved by the dynamometer to be from 20 to 50 per cent. Much depends upon the construction and condition of the plow and the nature of the soil.
e f are two forms of the
Green plow, one having a flat roller in the sole, and the other having also rollers journaled in the landside.
Plows with beams curved or divided to avoid catching stubble have been common in Britain for many years.
One of Finlayson's
rid-plows (
a,
Fig. 3824) is made with a beam arched in front of the colter so as to avoid the lodgment of weeds or stubble in the angle usually formed at that point.
Another (
b) has a beam bowed around the colter, so that the latter stands on a projecting piece, allowing any stubble to slide up and fall over without accumulating to such an extent as to interfere with the turning of the furrow.
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Plows. |
Finlayson's
skeleton-plow (
c) is adapted for extremely tenacious soils, to lessen the friction of the furrow-slice upon the mold board.
It was designed to suit the soil of
Kent County,
England, and only expose one third the usual surface to friction.
Stothard (
English) perforates the mold-board to reduce its frictional area in tenacious soils.
d is a potato-plow, having a share to pass below the tubers in the hill, and divergent arms to raise the soil and so scatter it that the tubers may be scrabbled to the top, separated, and left lying upon the surface.
Fig 3825 is a view of three
Hornsby's (
English) prize plows.
A is the champion model, having a small precedent share to turn over the stubble, a colter, and a share with a wing; the share gradually merges into a long, peculiarly shaped moldboard, which is convex and then concave, — a form not common with us. Of the pair of wheels, one runs in a furrow, the other on the land.
The stilts are long, and great command over the plow is obtained by the leverage.
The jointed draft-rod passes through an eye-bolt dependent from the nose of the beam, thence to the carriage of the wheels, and is bolted to the sheth of the plow at a point above the midlength of the mold-board.
B is a
double-furrow plow; it has two plows stocked to a triangular beam.
It has a gage-wheel forward, which runs on the land, and an anti-friction wheel which acts as the sole of the rear plow.
The middle wheel is the turning-wheel, which runs clear of the soil in the space behind the forward plow, being only brought into action when the plow is to be turned at the corner of a
land. When this is to be done, the lever, which is shown standing vertically, is depressed to the rear, throwing down the turning-wheel into the furrow of the forward plow, raising the plow from the ground, and constituting the middle wheel a pivot on which the plow may be swung round, as on an axis, turning in its whole length.
The plow may also travel to and from its work on this wheel.
The depth of furrow is regulated by the hind wheel and the gage-wheel.
The width of furrow is regulated by sliding the hind plow-body on the frame of the implement.
The plow
C is like the former in many points of construction, but has a single body.
Its adjustment for depth of furrow is by the hind wheel.
The essential elements of a plow, in its primitive and in its varied modern forms, are, — a
share to stir the ground: a
beam by which it is drawn; and a
handle or
handles by which it is guided.
The modern plow has (1.) a wooden or
iron frame or
stock, to which the operative parts are attached, by which it is drawn through the ground, and to which the guiding handles are attached.
The parts composing the stock are, —
The
beam.
The
sheth, standard, or
post.
The
handles or
stilts.
The
rounds.
2. The operative parts are of metal, and consist of, —
The steel
share, by which the bottom of the furrow is cut and the furrow slice raised.
[
1747]
The steel
colter, by which the furrow-slice is severed from the land or unplowed portion.
The
mold-board, by which the furrow slice is turned over.
The
landside, seen in some of the figures but absent in others, which presses against the unplowed ground and serves to steady the plow.
3. The other attachments of the plow are, —
The
clevis, for the attachment of the draft
The
draft-rod, extending from the
clevis to the
sheth.
Many modifications are found.
The
colter is sometimes a wing from the upper forward edge of the
mold-board; or it is a cutting-wheel in advance.
The
draft-rod is not universal, but adds to the strength of the implement.
The
mold-board was, as its name indicates, formerly of wood.
It was first made of iron by Small of
Berwickshire, Scotland, about 1764.
The chilled cast-iron plowshare was patented by
Ransome of
Ipswich, England, 1803.
The under side and points are hardened, and the top wears away, leaving a comparatively thin edge of hard, chilled iron.
This is an imitation of the provision of nature, whereby the teeth of the rodentiae are kept sharp, the external enamel keeping in advance of the softer parts which are sloped away from the cutting edge.
The points to be aimed at in the construction and management of a plow are as follows:—
A sharp, clean tapering form to the part which divides the soil.
A shape to the mold-board calculated to raise and turn the furrow-slice with as little friction as may be.
The beam and clevis should be so contrived that the team may be advantageously hitched in the line of draft.
Especial care is necessary when four or more horses are hitched, so that the draft of all may coincide.
The line of draft should be at right angles to the horses' shoulders, from whence it should pass through the middle hole of the clevis at the point of the beam.
The landside should be a plane, and parallel to the line of draft.
The colter should have an angular presentation of 45°.
The fin rising from the forward edge of the share, and acting in lieu of a colter, originated in
Scotland.
The cutting-wheel as a substitute for the colter is found in English paring-plows of many years back.
The depth and width of the furrow should be as 2 to 3.
The furrow-slice should be laid over at an angle of 45°.
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|
Plowing. |
Fig. 3826 represents different modes of turning furrows adopted in various soils.
a is the preferable rectangular furrow with level bed.
b is a crested furrow.
c has a completely inverted furrow-slice.
dshows ordinary plowing, the furrow-slice broken.
e is extra wide plowing with broken furrow.
Gang-plows are now used in some of the
Western States, also to a large extent in
England.
They are simply four, six, or eight plowshares fastened to a stout frame.
In
California, on the lighter soils, eight horses draw a seven-gang plow, and one such team is counted on to put in six hundred and forty acres of wheat in the sowing season; or from eight to ten acres per day. A seed-sower is fastened in front of the plow.
It scatters the seed, the plows cover it, and the work is done.
The plow has no handles, and the plowman is, in fact, only a driver; he guides the team; the plows do their own work.
It is a striking sight to see ten eight-horse teams following one another, over a vast plain, cutting “lands” a mile long, and when all have passed, leaving a track forty feet wide, of plowed ground.
On the heavier soils, the process is somewhat different.
An eight-horse team moves a four-gang plow, and gets over about six acres per day. The seed is then sown by a machine which scatters it forty feet, and sows from seventy-five to one hundred acres in a day, and the ground is then harrowed and crossharrowed.
When the farmer in this valley has done his winter sowing, he turns his teams and men into other ground, which he is to summer fallow.
This he can do from the first of March to the middle of May; and by it he secures a remunerative crop for the following year, even though the season be dry. See gang-plow.
2. (
Wood-working.) A grooving-plane in which the adjustable fence is secured to two transverse stems which pass through the stock of the plane, and are secured by wedges or screws.
It is fitted with eight irons of various sizes, and is used in making grooves in door-stiles to receive the panel, and for similar purposes.
See plane.
3. (
Bookbinding.) An implement for shaving off the edges of books and squares of boards.
It consists of two cheeks
a a, connected together by two guides
b b, and a screw passing through both cheeks.
In one of the cheeks, at
c, is fixed a cutting-blade.
The book to be plowed is inserted between two boards in a press, the edges of the sheets projecting sufficiently, and one of the cheeks placed in a groove in the press, which serves to guide its motion.
the plow is moved back and forth, and the cheek carrying the cutter advanced toward the other by turning the screw, cutting a longitudinal strip from the edge of the book at each forward motion until its whole surface has been planed off.
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|
Bookbinder's plow. |
4. (
Weaving.) An instrument for cutting the flushing parts of the pile or nap of fustian.
See under the following heads:—
| Bar-share plow. | Prairie-plow. |
| Binot. | Railroad-plow. |
| Bog-cutting plow. | Reversible plow. |
| Breast-plow. | Ridging-plow. |
| Carpenters' plow. | Rotary plow. |
| Corn-plow. | Seeding-plow. |
| Cultivator-plow. | Shim. |
| Diamond-plow. | Shovel-plow. |
| Ditching-plow. | Side-hill plow. |
| Double plow. | Single-shovel plow. |
| Double mold-board plow. | Skeleton-plow. |
| Double-shovel plow. | Skim-colter plow. |
| Down-share plow. | Snow-plow. |
| Draining-plow. | Sod-plow. |
| Expanding-plow. | Steam-plow. |
| Furrowing-plow. | Straddle-plow. |
| Gang-plow. | Subsoil-plow. |
| Garden-plow. | Sulky-plow. |
| Hillside-plow. | Swing mold-board plow. |
| Hoe-plow. | Swing-plow. |
| Ice-plow. | Tile laying — in plow. |
| Jumper-plow. | Treble-shovel plow. |
| Marking-plow. | Turn-wrest plow. |
| Mole-plow. | Wheel-plow. |
| Paring-plow. |
