PLOWS AND PLOWING. £77 



time cannot be definitely fixed, that the idea of the double wedge 

 for the purpose of first raising the furrow and then twisting it to 

 the right was introduced. It appears from all that is known that 

 this invention, in a crude form,. came from France. These were all 

 the improvements that we find any record of for a long series of 

 years. 



A revival of interest in agriculture in England occurred in the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century, and connected with this re- 

 vival of course was an*increased attention to the improvement of 

 the rude implement which had previously served them in a crude 

 manner the purposes of a plow. About this time a plow was in- 

 troduced from Holland, known as the Rotherham plow, which, on 

 account of its great superiority over anything which had preceded 

 it, is desei-ving of special notice and. a full description. 



It was manufactured by Joseph Foljambe of Yorkshire, but not- 

 withstanding its work was much better and its draft much lighter 

 than any which had preceded it, came slowly into use except 

 among the more enterprising farmers. In this respect it met the 

 same fate of many improved implements, not excepting plows them- 

 selves, of the present time ; proving to a dot that the conservative 

 element among farmers can be traced through a long line of an- 

 cestry. This plow was made of wood, covered on the mould-board 

 and land side with straps of sheet iron. The mould-board approx- 

 imated in shape to the theory now admitted to be the true one, of 

 a union of the lateral and vertical wedges connected by a curved 

 line so that the furrow slice is first raised and then gradually 

 turned over to one side. It was also supplied with a cutter and an 

 attachment or clevis on the end of the beam b}' which the draft 

 could be changed, so that the plow would draw ofl" or on the land 

 as desired. In form, style, and general appearance, it bore a close 

 resemblance, and would compare favorably with those old wooden 

 ■plows which were in use among us 'some half century ago, and 

 which all the old men now here probably guided in their boyhood, 

 and which we young men have frequently seen stowed away in 

 some out of the way corner and kept as a relic of the past. In- 

 deed, one man at least among you, whose hairs are not yet silvered 

 by the touch of Time, does not have to look through the lapse of 

 many years to the time when he saw plows of similar material, 

 and but little if any superior in pattern, exhibited for premium at a 

 county fair in this State ; and to-day, should the eflbrt be made, 

 could find a neighborhood in a flourishing county, which boasts — 



