398 



SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part II. 



2629. The improved Scotch plough, with one or sometimes two wheels (fig- 308.), fixed 

 near to the end of the beam, without any carriage, goes very light, and is very useful ; 

 such alterations as are necessary requiring very little time or trouble. Where two wheels 



are employed, the plough does very well without a holder on a good tilth or light sward, 

 where there are few stones, except at the setting in and turning out. Wheel ploughs 

 should, however, probably be seldom had recourse to by the experienced ploughman, 

 though they may be more convenient and more manageable for those who are not per- 

 fectly informed in that important and useful art. 



2630. The Beverston plough (Jig. 309.) was once considered a good wheel plough. It 

 has its principle of draught given it 

 in a very effective manner by an in- 

 genious contrivance of iron work, in 

 which, according to Lord Somerville, 

 " the point of draught is perpendi- 

 cularly above the point of traction, 

 or the throat or breast where the share 

 fits on." 



2631. The Kentish and Herefordshire wheel ploughs are extraordinary clumsy imple- 

 ments of very heavy draught, and making, especially the former, very indifferent work. 

 They were figured by Blythe in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and seem to 

 have received no improvement since. The Kentish plough is generally made with a 

 turn-wrest, in order always to turn land downwards in ploughing a hill ; but this, as 

 Lord Somerville remarks, soon renders the summit of the hill or the upper side of the 

 field, where such a practice is persisted in, destitute of soil. A much better mode is to 

 plough up and down the steep, or diagonally across it. In either case the double mould- 

 board plough, invented by His Lordship, is of singular use, as one furrow only need be 

 taken in going up and two in coming down. 



2632. The Norfolk wheel plough (fg. 310.) has a clumsy appearance, from the great 



bulk of its wheels and their carriage ; 

 but in light friable soils it does its 

 work with neatness, and requires only 

 a small power of draught. 



2633. Ploughs ivilh wheels for 

 diminishing friction are of compara- 

 tively recent date. Morton, of Leith 

 walk, in 1813, conceived the idea of 

 introducing into thebody of the plough a wheel about 15 inches in diameter, to act as 

 the sole, and made several exhibitions of a plough so constructed before the Dalkeith 

 Fanning Society. (Card. Mag. vol. v.) Wilkie, of Uddingston, brought forward a 

 rimilar plough in 1814, and Plenty, of London, in 1815. Liston, of Edinburgh, a few 

 years afterwards, brought forward a plough on the same principle ; but it never came 

 into use. Plenty's friction wheel plough has been occasionally used in England. It has 

 two wheels under the beam, and one behind the sole ; and, while the same plough with 

 two wheels requires a power of 4 cwt., those with a third or friction wheel, as Mr. Plenty 

 informs us, require only a draught of 3f 5 cwt. _ 



2634. WUkie's single horse wheel plough (fig. 311.) was invented by tne late Mr. -Wil- 

 kie, and described by him in the Farmers Magazine for November, 1814. It has the 



