PLOWS AND PLOWING. 283 



introducing the plows. Without doubt they have points of excel- 

 lence and will in time establish themselves in the favor of many- 

 farmers. 



We have thus glanced at some of the most important steps in 

 the improvement of the plow. The history is fraginentary and 

 disconnected, but it will serve to point out the milestones of pro- 

 gress in its development, and give an idea of the varions steps 

 through which it has passed, and of the leading minds who have 

 made it a study, and by whom it has been brought to its present 

 state of perfection, and to whom we arg indebted for its present 

 degree of usefulness. When we consider how simple a machine it 

 i*s, and that it has always been regarded as the basis of all civiliza- 

 tion and all wealth, it is astonishing that it should have taken so 

 long to bring it to its present state of perfection. The locomotive 

 engine, infinitely more complicated in its construction than the 

 plow, dependent entirely upon its operations for its existence, has 

 leaped into its present condition — a condition almost equal in its 

 arrangements to the human system, and but little inferior to it in 

 its action— in the lapse of a few years ; while the plow of to-day 

 has waded through the slow progress of two hundred years since 

 the hand of genius first attempted to shape its proportions. 



In the further consideration of my subject it becomes necessary 

 to reverse the order of the title so that it will read Plowing and 

 Plows, and after w^e have ascertained how we wish to do the 

 work, look about us and see if we can find the implement to do it 

 with. Under this arrangement the first thing to be considered is 

 the object of plowing. There ai-e several results to be attained in 

 the operation of plowing, all centering in. the desire to increase 

 the productiveness of the soil, while at the same time we are pre- 

 paring it for any desired crop. The first object is to invert the 

 soil ; and the object of inverting the soil is first to cover all sward 

 grass, weeds and living plants, which would obstruct the subse- 

 quent working of the soil for the production of the desired crop, 

 and to utilize them by converting them into plant food ; and 

 secondly, to mix the soils. All understand very well that plants 

 absorb a certain amount of mineral matter from the soil, and in 

 order for the mineral constituents to be available to the plant they 

 must be within reach of the rootlets of the plant. There is no 

 soil to be found whose mineral constituents are evenly distributed 

 through the whole mass, and hence that soil will be rendered more 

 fertile by repeated inversions with the plow. Again, the same 



