244 



PLOUGH 



a handle for the ploughman and a pole for the men 

 to drag by, the share wax shod with an iron ]x>iiit, 

 and at last a pair of cows or mares were yoked 

 on instead of the men.' The development of 

 iln- Egyptian plough was similar. The ancient 

 Egyptian plough was wholly of wood, and in 

 some instances consisted of little more than a 

 pointed stick, which was forced into the ground as 

 it was drawn forward ; though there deems to 

 have been ploughs with handles, and with metal 

 socks. The Aryan peoples took pride in their 

 being the ploughing (arart ; see AGRICULTURE, 

 Vol. L p. 98) peoples. The earliest form of the 

 Greek plough, the auto- 

 guon (fig. 4, a), is an 

 example of this ; it was 

 merely the trunk of a 

 small tree, which had 

 two branches opposite 

 to each other, one branch 

 forming the share and 

 the other the handle, 

 while the trunk formed 

 the pole or beam. The 

 more improved form, the 

 /H'/.tmi. in use among 

 the Greeks, was not sub- 

 stantially different from 

 thr modern form in use 

 in some parts of Asia 

 Minor (fig. 4). The 



Fig. 5. 



ancient Egyptian plough in one of its early stages 

 is represented in fig. 5. The Romans, an essenti- 

 ally practical nation, largely improved on the 

 plough, adding to 

 it the coulter and 

 mould - board, and 

 occasionally attach- 

 ing wheels to the 

 beam to prevent the 

 share from going too 

 deep into the earth 

 (fig. 6). The plough 

 was almost unknown 

 among the American 

 aborigines, though 

 Prescott describes a 

 mode of ploughing 

 practised among the 

 Peruvians, which 

 consisted in the drag- 

 ging forward a sharp-pointed stake by six or eight 

 men, ite sharp point, which was in front, lieing kept 

 down in the ground by the pressure of the foot of 

 another man who directed it. The ancient heavy 

 plough dragged bv eight oxen was still in use in 

 Aberdeenshire well into the 18th century. In 

 Britain the most important amendments on the 



land, in which the chief improvers were James 

 Small (the inventor of the Scotch swing plough), 

 Wilkie, Ciray, and Sellar. In England the im- 

 provers have chiefly been Kansome of Ipswich 

 (the patentee in 1785 of the cast-iron share), 

 Howard of liedford, Hornxby of (Jrantham, and 

 Busby of liednle, the last of whom gained a medal 

 for his mould-boards at the Great Exhibition of 

 1851. Kansome's wheel-plough has long finely- 

 made mould boaiiU. rather short broad shares, 

 straight coulters, and with the two wheels on level 

 land can almost move unattended. Ancient types, 

 however, still survive ; the East Anglian plough 

 has only one (wooden) stilt, and is very heavy, 

 but makes good work. There are many special! v 

 American types of plough. In the sulky plough 

 wheels support the weight of the plough and of 

 the furrow-slice, decreasing friction, and saving 

 labour to the ploughman, who has a seat on the 

 implement; the disadvantage is the much greater 

 cost of this kind of plough. and the cumbrous si/e. 

 The Double Michigan plough has a small paring 

 plough on the Ix-am in front of the other; the 

 small plough pares off the surface and throws it 

 into the previous furrow, and the large one com 

 pletely buries it under a heavy furrow-slice. Re- 

 versible ploughs, like the Oneonta Clipper, have 

 the share and mould-board, so that they can lie 

 easily changed from one side to the other ; these 

 are also called swivel ploughs or side-hill plough-. 



Steam-ploughing. It has been alleged that the 

 cultivation of the land by steam had been contem- 

 plated as far back as the 17th century. So long 

 ago as 1618 David Uamsey and Thomas Wild- 



Fig. 6. 



plough are not two centuries old, and some of 

 them were doubtless borrowed from the careful 

 agriculture of Holland. England took the lead in 

 improvement, followed some time later by Scot- 



Fig. 7. Kansome's Wheel Plough. 



gouge took out letters-patent for engines and 

 machinery to plough the ground without the aid of 

 oxen or horses, and the attempt has been made to 

 show that steam was the motive power intended 

 to be employed ; but, as the first patent was 

 taken out nearly forty years before the Mar 

 quis of Worcester described the steam engine in 

 his Century of Inventiotis, the grounds for such an 

 opinion do not seem quite satisfactory. In 1769, 

 however, after the steam-engine had Dean applied 

 to other pnrjvoses, there was lodged in the Patent 

 Office a speeilieat ion for a new machine or engine, 

 to plough, harrow, and do every other branch of 

 husbandry, without the aid of horsed. The patentee 

 was Frain'is Moore ; and so confident was he of the 

 merits of his plan that he sold all his own horses, 

 and persuaded his friends to do the same ; ' because 

 the price of that noble and useful animal will Iw 

 so affected by the new invention that its value 

 will not be one-fourth of what it is at present.' 

 Moore, like ninny who followed in his wake, was 

 iniieh too sanguine. The truth is that even yet 

 steam-power has onlv to a verv small extent sup- 

 planted horse labour in the cultivation of the soil 

 Early English patentees were 1'ialt in 1810, and 

 Heathcote in 18312. Itut the first steam cultivat- 

 ing apparatus which gave anything like satisfac- 



