62 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



the blending of a horizontal with a vertical wedge, 

 seems more likely to be grasped by a practical or work- 

 ing mechanic; and it is not an unreasonable surmise 

 that some of Col. Pickering's oral or written commen- 

 taries may have drifted across the Pennsylvania 

 border and assisted those mechanics in elucidating and 

 embodying the Jeffersonian idea. 



The earliest of these plough makers was Charles 

 Newbold of New Jersey, who, as remarked above, was 

 the first to make a mould-board wholly of cast-iron. 

 Prosperity did not attend him, because of a local 

 superstition ; for it is said, in reference to his plough, 

 that "the farmers had in some way imbibed the 

 strange notion that the cast-iron plough poisoned the 

 land, injured its fertility, and promoted the growth of 

 weeds." But towards the year 1817 Jethro Wood 

 triumphed over this prejudice, and ploughs of his 

 design had a very extensive sale. All these plough 

 makers made certain variations from, or additions to, 

 what the strict terms of Mr. Jefferson's description 

 call for. Indeed Mr. Jefferson himself stated, subse- 

 quently to his first announcement, that he had so done 

 in ploughs made for his own use. His object was to 

 better the plough for his own farm work; theirs to 

 achieve some improvement upon which to base a claim 

 for a patent. But the main principle was held to, as 

 appears in what was said above as to the degree of 

 originality in Wood's plough. Of ploughs of the 

 Wood's pattern nearly 7000 were sold in 1817 and the 

 two following years, and of these more than 1,000 

 went, in the year 1818, to Virginia. In the period 

 immediately following there is no reason to suppose 

 that Virginia's annual purchase was less; and, if not 

 the actual numbers, the general fact could hardly fail 

 to become known to Mr. Jefferson, and must have been 



