CHAPTER XXIII. 



PLOWING. 



709. Plowing is merely a means resorted to for stirring up 

 the soil, and rendering it friable in order that it may receive the 

 seed. Digging was probably the original mode of performing 

 this operation, but as this is very laborious, although very effect 

 ive, some sort of plow appears to have been invented as soon as 

 oxen or horses were employed in agriculture. The history of 

 the plow is the history of the art ; for so intimately are good 

 crops dependent upon good plowing, that just in proportion as 

 this implement has been improved so has the product of the earth 

 increased in quantity. But it is only of late years that this all 

 important implement has been formed on true mechanical prin 

 ciples; and, with the exception of Great Britain and America, 

 nearly all the world still cling to the use of antiquated and in 

 efficient form*; nor can it yet be said that either the plow or 

 the mode of using it are fully understood. The English and 

 Americans form and use the plow on different principles, the 

 first endeavoring to lay an unbroken furrow, the latter trying to 

 break or pulverize the soil in the operation ; while the proper 

 depth of plowing in different classes of soils is very little under 

 stood by practical men. Notwithstanding the great skill with 

 which the best American plows are made, there is still a wide 

 field of improvement open in both these respects. Within a 

 very few years, many efforts have been made to plow by steam, 

 or by horso power, indirectly applied ; and a Canadian is at this 

 moment perfecting a machine in England ; while there is one 



