Shov′el-plow.
One having a simple triangular share, and employed for cultivating ground between growing crops.
The
shovel is a
share, but while objecting to the name there is no objection to the tool.
They are made either single or double; so called, not that the
double-shovel plow has, in any sense, a double shovel, but it has two sheths, and a share on each.
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Single and double shovel-plow. |
The
single-shovel plow has been in use for many years; the double-shovel is a later invention.
It resembles some of the plows used for a thousand years and more in
Asia and
Southern Europe (see
a b,
Fig. 3822, page 1743); but it is a better implement, and the double-shovel is nearly perfect in its way and for its purpose: that is, tending a crop which is planted in hills or rows, such as corn or potatoes.
The illustration shows the mode of framing.
The shovels are triangular, the wings bending backward a little, and the point curved forward.
The shovel is secured by a bolt to the sheth.
A clevis on the nose of the beam affords means for attaching the single-tree of the horse.
One plow is a foot in advance of the other; and it is a
right or a
left hand shovelplow, according to the shovel which is in the advance.
In the
West farmers prefer left-handed plows, both in large plows and in shovel, throwing the furrow or soil to the left.
In the
Eastern States and in
Europe the right-hand is said to be yet the favorite.
Several reasons combine to make the left-hand the more convenient.
Some refuse to try it.
Verbum sap.
The nearest approach to our shovel-plow in Britain is the Scotch horse-hoe, which, when used without the middle shovel, has two shovels at the side, but parallel.
This is inferior to the
American oblique arrangement.
The proper way to work all such tools is to go down one side of a row of plants and up the other side, using the forward shovel to work to the row, the other shovel merely cultivating the ground in the balk.
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Scotch horse-hoe. |
