plows, in the regions where tliey were used, to dis- 

 tinguish them from the standard wooden plows and 

 from the newer cast-iron implements. The term 

 "wooden plow" has a similar history. For well over 

 2000 years in Europe some plows have been made 

 with iron shares and the rest of the structure wood. 

 Plows in 18th-century America were made principally 

 of wood with iron shares, colters, and clevises, and 

 with strips of iron frequently covering the wooden 

 moldboard. These implements were called, simply, 

 plows of various regional types. Not until the de- 

 velopment and spread of the factory-made plows with 

 cast-iron moldboards, landsides, and standards did 

 the term "wooden plow" come into use to differentiale 

 all these plows from the newer ones. .Subsequently 

 writers have been led to assume that "wooden plow" 

 meant a plow with no iron parts and consequently to 

 make unwarranted statements about the priinitive- 

 ness of the 1 8th-century implements. 



A second reason for use of the term "steel plow" 

 may have developed from the supposition that the 

 moldboards of the first John Deere plows were made 

 of diamond-shaped sections cut from old mill saws, 

 which later writers seem to have assumed were made 

 of steel. (It is probable that from the late 1850's on 

 Deere plows had steel moldboards.) However, mill 

 saws of the early 19th century were not necessarily 

 made of steel, which was then relatively expensive. 

 I have been told of an old mill saw made of wrought 

 iron on which was welded a steel edge that carried 

 the teeth. ^' Rees' Cyclopaedia ^^ describes saws as 

 being made of either wrought iron or steel, the latter 

 being preferable. Therefore, it seems most likely 

 that Deere's plows, from his first until the middle 

 1850's were made with highly polished wi-ought-iron 

 moldboards :incl ■;ii'el shares. 



RECONSTRUCTIONS 



The remains of the 1838 plow are .shown in figures 

 7 and 9. One's curiosity is aroused as to what the 

 plow looked like in its original state, complete with 

 handles. Several full-scale 3-dimensionaI reconstruc- 

 tions and a number of sketches of the 1837 plow have 

 been made. The reconstructions all must have been 

 based on the remains of the 1838 plow, since they 



2' For this information I am indebted to Mr. E. A. Battison 

 of the U. S. National Museum staff. 



52 Abraham Rces, The c)rlopaedia; or universal dictionary oj 

 arts, sciences, and literature, Philadelphia, 1810-1842, vol. 33, 

 under saw. 



resemble it closely and it is llic onl\- survixing plow 

 of this type known. 



Recently I received a photograph (fig. 3, right) 

 of a jdIow which has been bo.xed and in storage for 

 many years at Deere & Company which may be an 

 early Deere plow. As it appears in the ]5hotograph, 

 the plow looks unconvincing. The handles are 

 fastened by bolls and nuts, a manner uncommon in 

 American plow making in the early 19th century. 

 The shape of the handles is that of stock handles 

 available for small plows and cultivators in such a 

 catalog as Belknap's. The plow seems very high and 

 weakly braced. There is no logical reason for curving 

 the end of the beam down and cutting it off at a 

 slant if the handles arc attached in the manner 

 shown. The edges of the tenon on the up])er end of 

 the standard where it goes through the mortise in 

 the beam have been neatly beveled in a manner I 

 have never seen before on any other plow. All of 

 this leads me to think that this is an early recon- 

 struction based on the remains of the 1838 plow 

 which it only roughly approximates in pro])ortion 

 and design. 



Another of these reconstructions is shown in figure 

 3, left. Although superficially like the 1838 plow 

 it varies considerably in its {)roportions, in the angular 

 relations of its parts, and in other details such as the 

 use of iron bolts and nuts in place of wooden pins. 

 All these reconstructions agree in one thing. They 

 show a plow with handles fastened to both sides of 

 the plow beam and standard. 



During an examination of the 1838 plow it occurred 

 to me that there was no indication of an attachment 

 of a handle on the landside in the same manner as 

 on the furrow side. The position and attachment of 

 the handle in figure 7 is clearh- indicated by the re- 

 mains of a wooden pin in the side of the plow beam 

 near the rear end and by the large iron staple, in 

 the side of the standard, which must have held the 

 tapered lower end of the handle. Figure 8 is a sketch 

 showing this handle in position. The landside view of 

 this jjIow in figure 9 shows that the pin did not ex- 

 tend through the beam nor arc there marks on the 

 standard to indicate the position of a siajjle like that 

 on the furrow side. The four holes approximately in 

 line on the standard and beam show where a piece 

 of sheet metal had been nailed to hold the beam and 

 standard in about the right position. The outline of 

 the sheet metal can be seen on the side of the beam. 

 This was removed at the time this examination was 

 made. 



24 



BULLETIN 218: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF IIISTOR\- AND TECHNOLOGY 



