CHAPTER XII 



Plow Bottoms 



PHE bottom is the business end of the plow. Upon 

 1 its performance depends the quality of the seed bed 

 the farmer can prepare. Since the quality of the seed bed 

 determines very largely the start a crop gets it is obvious 

 that a plow bottom is the vital part of a farmer's equip- 

 ment. All the rest of the plow is merely for the purpose 

 of enabling the operator to make the bottom work 

 correctly. 



When one reflects upon what has been said in 

 Chapter V about different soil compositions, the 

 effect of humus, lack of humus, fertility, moisture, air 

 and heat upon plant growth the reason why one must 

 use a plow bottom adapted to that particular kind of 

 soil becomes plain. 



Manufacturers have not yet been able to make any 

 one bottom that can be adapted to all these different 

 types of soil. This explains why farmers who have sand 

 and clay soils should have both chilled and steel bottoms 



with entirely different shaped mouldboards. 







Plow builders are doing their utmost to design bot- 

 toms that will approach the best work in all conditions 

 under which farmers plow. They have been remarkably 

 successful in building bottoms that will plow excep- 

 tionally well in all types of soils that have one or more 

 common characteristics but when the demarkation is 

 too pronounced it is necessary to change the shapes of the 

 mouldboards in order to properly stir the soil. 



