PLOUGH. 



PLOUGH. 



an accident might not interrupt the work; and 

 he also enforces the advantages of careful and 

 skilful ploughing. 



The ploughs of Rome were of the most sim- 

 ple form, as may be inferred from ancient 

 drawings. See AGRICULTURE. 



Rivalling these in simplicity and rudeness 

 of form, are the never altered or improved 

 ploughs of the Hindoos and the Chinese, from 

 whose implements it is probable the shape of 

 those of Rome was borrowed. 



The object sought to be effected by means of 

 the plough, is exactly the same as that accom- 

 plished in the primitive ages by the spade. 

 The addition of cattle to force the plough in 

 the operation of breaking up the ground, leads 

 to complexity. But although the spade is an 

 implement of such great simplicity, the act of 

 digging with it exacts a great deal of indivi- 

 dual exertion, almost every muscle of the body 

 being called into play in alternately pushing 

 and lifting. In this respect the modern im- 

 proved plough possesses great advantages in 

 being propelled by animals and directed with 

 very little individual muscular exertion. 



It is curious to trace the progress of plough- 

 making in England. Those of the early culti- 

 valors were of necessity rude and imperfect, 

 for in those days the ploughman made his own 

 plough. A law of the early Britons in fact 

 directed that no one should guide a plough until 

 he was able to make one. The driver was, by 

 the same law, to make the traces by which it 

 was drawn, and these were to be formed of 

 withes of twisted willow ; a long-exploded cus- 

 tom ; many of the olden terms of which, how- 

 ever, are still retained by the rustic plough- 

 men. Thus the womb-withy is yet called the 

 wambtye or wantye. \Vithen trees are denomi- 

 nated ivitten trees, or whipple trees, &c. 



It is uncertain whether the early British 

 ploughs had wheels ; some of those of the 

 Saxons were certainly furnished with them. 

 Yet it is pretty certain that they used ploughs 

 of a form rivalling those of modern India in 

 simplicity; a rude sketch of one of these is 

 given in a Saxon MS. (Harl. MS. 603), from 

 which it would seem that our Saxon forefathers 

 were wont to fasten their horses to the plough 

 by their tails ; a barbarous custom, which cer- 

 tainly was formerly practised in Ireland to such 

 an extent that the legislature interfered in 1634, 

 and declared by the 11 & 12 Car. II. c. 15 (Irish 

 Parl.), entitled " An act against ploughing by 

 the Tayle, and pulling the Wool off living 

 Sheep," that "in many places of this kingdome 

 there hath been a long time used a barbarous 

 custome of ploughing, harrowing, drawing, 

 and working with horses, mares, geldings, gar- 

 rans, and colts by the taile, whereby (besides 

 the cruelty used to the beasts) the breed of 

 horses is much impaired in this kingdome. 

 And also divers have and yet do use the like 

 barbarous custome of pulling off the wool 

 yearly from living sheep, instead of clipping 

 or shearing of them." These wretched prac- 

 tices are then declared illegal, and to be pun- 

 ishable with fine and imprisonment. 



The Norman plough was also furnished with 

 wheels, and it was usual for the ploughmen to 

 carry a hatchet to break the clods, as is de- 

 900 



; picted in an ancient picture from whence the 

 sketch at page 41 is engraved. 



It is pretty certain that the ox was at first, 

 and for a lengthened period, the only animal 

 employed to draw the plough. Thus, although 

 the plough and oxen are so frequently men- 

 tioned in conjunction in the Bible, the horse is 

 never alluded to for such an occupation: an 

 old British law forbade the use of any animal 

 except the ox for this purpose. The first re- 

 presentation, of which I am aware, observes 

 Mr. J. A. Ransome, of a horse employed in the 

 plough, is that given (A. D. 1066) in the tapes- 

 try of Bayeux. 



There are evident traces in the early English 

 agricultural authors of the importance which 

 they ascribed to the improved construction of 

 the plough. This implement, however, was 

 long drawn entirely by oxen in Britain. 



Fitzherbert, in his Boke of Husbandrye (1532), 

 speaks in a manner that shows that even in his 

 day plough-horses were not generally employed ; 

 he observes, " a husbande may not be without 

 horses and mares, and especially if he goe with 

 a horse-plough." Worlidge, in his Mystery of 

 Husbandry, describes (A. D. 1677) very clearly 

 the first rude attempt to construct a sub-soil 

 plough: he tells us, p. 230, "of an ingenious 

 young man of Kent, who had two ploughs fas- 

 tened together very firmly, by the which he 

 ploughed two furrows at once, one under 

 another, and so stirred up the land 12 or 14 

 inches deep. It only looseneth and lighteneth 

 the land to that depth, but doth not bury the 

 upper crust of the ground so deep as is usually 

 done by digging." When Heresbasch wrote 

 (1570), it was not uncommon in some of the 

 warmer parts of Germany and Italy to plough 

 during the night, " that the moisture and fattness 

 of the ground may remain shadowed under the 

 clodde, and that the cattell through overmuch 

 heate of the sunne be not diseased or hurt." 

 (31 b.) Jethro Tull, more than a century since, 

 paid considerable attention to the plough ; he 

 had even searched into the early history of this 

 implement, and concluded that it was "found 

 out by accident, and that the first tillers (or 

 ploughers) of the ground were hogs." (Husb. 

 p. 131.) The ploughs which he describes, and 

 of which he gives drawings, were evidently 

 (although rudely and heavily constructed) su- 

 perior in several respects to all that had pre- 

 ceded them. 



It is not necessary to do more than thus 

 slightly advert to the various notices which are 

 to be found in the early histories and pictures 

 of this invaluable implement; for, in fact, for 

 ages the plough was little more than a rude, 

 clumsy instrument, which served only to rake 

 the surface, instead of making furrows in the 

 land sufficiently deep for the seeds to be buried. 

 It was not brought to any thing like a perfect 

 tool for the purposes required till the close of 

 seventeenth century. 



The plough, being the fundamental imple- 

 ment of agriculture, common to all ages and 

 countries, its primitive form is almost every- 

 where the same. The forms used by the Greeks 

 and Romans (see AGRICULTURE) seem to have 

 spread over Europe, and undergone no change 

 till probably about the sixteenth century, when 



