AGRICULTURAL TEXT-BOOK. 341 



in successful operation in that country which may be worked 

 either by steam or horse power. This is not strictly plowing, 

 in the usual sense of the word, but turning up the soil by rotary 

 cutters. Should such machines become generally available they 

 will probably revolutionize agriculture, as the introduction of the 

 Spinning Jenny &c. revolutionized the manufacture of Cotton 

 and Woolen cloths ; since it will be impossible for small farmers, 

 working on the old plan, to compete with large capitalists, with 

 extensive, farms, doing all their work by steam and other ma 

 chinery. As however, the improvements introduced into man 

 ufactories have not only benefited the world in general, but 

 supplied work for a very much larger number of laborers, so 

 may we expect this revolution in art to produce the same effect 

 in agriculture. 



710. Till within a century, all plows were made of wood with 

 wrought iron plates &c, nailed on, for the land-side, mould-board, 

 and point. In Great Britain, they were generally prepared with 

 one or two wheels at the end of the plow-beam, as they still are 

 in France and Germany, and were drawn by 4 to 8 horses ; or 

 by a pair of horses with the addition of four, and sometimes of 

 six oxen, with one man to hold, and two to drive. About 1763, 

 James Small, of the county of Berwick, Scotland, a manufactu 

 rer of Agricultural implements, turned his attention to the im 

 provement of plow r s. In experimenting, he made the mould- 

 board of soft-wood, by means of which it soon appeared where 

 the pressure was the most severe, and where there w r as the 

 greatest friction. He likewise applied true mechanical principles 

 to the subject ; introduced cast iron in place of wood ; and so 

 lightened the draft that two horses were quite as efficient as the 

 heavy teams previously employed. This appears to have been the 

 first invention of the light and elegant cast-iron swing plows which 

 are now every where in use in this country. (Sir John Sinclair, i n 

 his Account of the systems of husbandry adopted in Scotland, 

 1812, gives the full history of this invention.) This introduc- 



