412 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT AND PERFECTION OF THE PLOUGH. 



At the close of our last article, we proposed to glance 

 at the peculiarities of a few of our leading implements, 

 as exhibited at the meeting of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society at Salisbury, and to investigate their principles 

 of action ; so as to deduce, if possible, some data which 

 might lead us to trace the direction in which their fur- 

 ther improvement might be made, or whether they are 

 likely to be superseded by other mechanism better cal- 

 culated to do their work. 



As first in importance, and first undoubtedly in its 

 claims to a high antiquity — the latter feature with some 

 minds carrying with it no small influence— the plough 

 demands our attention. Between the rude implement 

 as figured in some Harleian MS. and the finished 

 workmanship and scientific construction of a Howard, 

 a Ransome, or a Busby's plough there is a wide inter- 

 val. It carries us over, in fact, some hundreds of years. 

 And while thinking over the weary periods, we scarce 

 know at which to wonder most — that improvement has 

 been so slow, or that it has always been made in the same 

 beaten track ; another implement to do the same work 

 being seldom thought of. But of this more hereafter. 

 Suffice it now to say, that from the minds of all men Tun- 

 ing constantly in the same groove, much might be, and 

 no doubt is, argued in favour of this peculiar implement, 

 as being the very best for the work to be done. We 

 have said that there is a wide interval between a Saxon 

 and a modern plough. Rude as the former was, it, 

 however, contained the germ of the latter. Scoring or 

 tearing a simple rut in the soil, its extreme simplicity 

 of parts, with the gradual progi-ess of agriculture, gave 

 way to an arrangement of greater complexity and mul- 

 tiplication of details, but all carrying out the principle 

 of action ofwhich the simple plough with its " scoring" 

 of the soil gave the rudiments or suggested the outline. 

 This principle was inversion. Indeed, a simpler imple- 

 ment than even the Saxon plough would, in its action, 

 serve to suggest this principle. The mere drawing of 

 lines across the surface of the soil with a pointed stick 

 would, with the displacement, show an inversion of 

 some portions of the soil ; the moving of the naked foot 

 through loose soil or sand, &c., would still more clearly 

 show the inversion with the displacement of the soil. 

 Here, indeed, in the rising curved instep, we have an 

 exemplification of what to a thinking man might have 

 been the germ of the mould-board of the plough. Im- 

 portant inventions have taken their rise, before this, from 

 as humble a suggestion. This principle being fairly 

 established, by what steps, and by whom and where 

 taken, the mould-board — the principal feature of the 

 modern plough — was elaborated to the first veritable 

 form, we have no means of ascertaining. There has 

 always been a close connection between good draining 

 and good ploughing j the results of the former liave 

 always thrown inducements in the way of the farmer to 

 Carry out to greater completeness the latter operation. 



Noting the landmarks of history, it seems probable 

 that we owe that form of plough which contained 

 all the essential parts of the plough now in use, to 

 those mechanics and engineers who came over fi-om 

 Holland to conduct the draining of the English fens. 

 Certain it is, at all events, that in Holland the plough 

 took that form, and assumed the parts which pecu- 

 liarly distinguish it now. In the Rotherham or Dutch 

 plough, introduced into England about the beginning 

 of the 18th century, we find the beam, the bridle, or 

 " head" and the stilts or handles, the coulter, the 

 sock or share, and the mould-board, all exemplified. 

 These then being accepted as the essential features of 

 the implement, the peculiar features also of the opera- 

 tion of which were deemed as essential to the cultiva- 

 tion of the soil, all that has followed since has been the 

 perfecting in their details of workmanship or con- 

 struction, on principles of more correct theory, the 

 various parts, so that the grand principle of the im- 

 plement might be as economically carried out as pos- 

 sible — namely, the complete inversion of the soil. The 

 aim of our inventors in this department therefore has 

 been simply the endeavour to make the clumsy and 

 inefficient implements of a rude condition of agri- 

 culture, do a higher class of work with certainty and 

 economy. How far the later improvers of the im- 

 plement have succeded in effecting this economy of 

 working, let the satisfactory practice of the last few 

 years decide. 



The Rotherham plough slowly worked its way into 

 practice, but was little improved in its details j intro- 

 duced at last into Scotland, it prompted a now well- 

 known mechanic, James Small, to take it up, with a view 

 to place its construction on a more accurate basis. His 

 improvements resulted in giving the essential parts that 

 decided character which has more or less influenced 

 inventors from his period. To aid him in his practice 

 came opportunely — the art of iron-founding. Up to 

 this period the mould-board — now, perhaps, with the 

 improved materials of its construction, more correctly 

 termed the turn-furrow — was truly named ; it in fact 

 being made of boards, the sheathing only being of 

 iron-plate. Working out a form of mould-board which 

 he conceived best calculated to produce the best work, 

 he was enabled by casting to multiply duplicates, thus 

 securing the permanence of his form or the outline 

 of tui'n-furrow, and placing it without the chances of 

 misconstruction arising either from the ignorance or 

 the wilfulness of the village mechanic, who under the 

 old circumstances would have made it of wood. An 

 impulse, and a widely-extended one, being thus given to 

 the improvement of the established implement of cul- 

 ture, other inventors followed in the wake of Small, 

 each advocating principles of construction — the mould - 

 board being in all cases the grand feature to which 

 attention was du-ected— more or less applicable to prac- 



