58 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



was generally shod with iron to diminish the friction and pre- 

 vent wear; but frequently only strips of iron, in small pieces, old 

 horse-shoes, &c., were used for the purpose, and the desired 

 effect was not produced. It is not too much to say that the 

 changes and modifications made in the mould-board within the 

 last forty years have effected such improvements as to enable 

 the farmer to do a much greater amount of better work, with far 

 less expenditure of strength, and to reap larger crops as the 

 result, while the original cost of the implement is less than it 

 formerly was. The saving to the country from these improve- 

 ments alone, within the last twenty-five years, has been esti- 

 mated at no less than ten millions of dollars a year in the work 

 of teams, and one million in the price of ploughs, while the 

 aggregate of the crops is supposed to have been increased by- 

 many millions of bushels. 



««KV\v>^^C 



These improvements in the form of the mould-board will be 

 plain, when we consider that one side of the furrow-slice, as 

 soon as it is cut, begins to rise gradually, till, as the plough 

 advances, it is turned entirely over. The mould-board should, 

 of course, be so constructed as to offer the least possible resist- 

 ance as it advances, and to run as far as possible without clog- 

 ging, to which the old plough was especially liable, the lines of 

 the mould-board being concave, instead of convex or straight, 

 after the rules more recently laid down requiring the " board 

 to be composed of straight lines in the direction of its length, 

 with continually increasing angles to the line of the farrow ; 

 and these last lines are severally straight, convex and concave." 

 And Ransome, after the most mature study of this implement, 



