248 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Thomas Jefferson, in 1793, was the first one in this country 

 to use a cast-iron mold-board. He advocated the doctrine 

 that the mold-board should have straight lines at right angles. 

 His plow did not have suflicient twist to turn the furrow 

 properly. It may be said that since Jefferson American 

 inventors of the plow have embodied TuU's idea, — that 

 pulverizing the soil is the main thing to be sought in plow- 

 ins:. The British seem to regard a smooth furrow with 

 uniform crest across the field as more essential, consequently 

 they use more straight lines in the mold-board. 



Robert Ransome in England, in 1803, and Edwin A. 

 Stevens in America, in 1817, independent of each other, 

 invented a process of chilling or case-hardening the bottom 

 of the share, as a means of keeping the cutting edge sharp 

 when the plow becomes worn away. The first letters patent 

 on a cast-iron plow in this country were granted to Charles 

 Newbold, a farmer of Burlington, N. J., in 1797. This plow 

 had sheath, land side, mold-board and share cast in one 

 piece. Mr. Newbold spent a large sum of money in trying 

 to introduce his improved method of plowing, but it did not 

 meet the approval of farmers to any great extent. It was 

 looked upon with suspicion by many, who said the iron 

 poisoned the land and caused weeds to grow. 



As late as 1820 a writer in the " Rhode Island American " 

 says that "in most parts of Massachusetts, the Old Colony 

 plows, with ten-foot beam and four-foot laud side, were still 

 in use ; and the Sutton plows, ' which are not fit to plow any 

 land that has sod on it ; your furrows stand up like the ribs 

 of a lean horse in the month of March. A lazy plowman 

 may sit on the beam and count every bout in his day's 

 work.'" One famous Old Colony plow was the one made 

 by Daniel Webster, and used by him in breaking up sod and 

 new land on his farm in Marshfield. 



In 1819 Jethro Wood of Scipio, N. Y., obtained a patent 

 on a plow made of iron, with the different parts cast separate. 

 This ushers in a new era in the history of the plow, — the 

 era of manufacturing as distinguished from the era of build- 

 ing in small quantities by blacksmiths or plowrights, by 

 making it possible for the farmer to replace a broken or 

 worn-out casting with a new one from the factory. By the 



