240 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



land in 1750, known as the " Rotherham," — probably a 

 corruption of Rotterdam, — and that is really the basis of 

 all the progress that has been made in the plow in England 

 and Scotland for the last hundred years. That had a pretty 

 fair mould-board; it had two handles and a clevis, — the 

 latter used for the first time just about one hundred years 

 ago. To that plow Tull devoted his best energies, think- 

 ing that by developing it he would do a great deal to assist 

 husbandry. He attached wheels to the truck which were 

 five or six feet in diameter, and there was a very clumsy sys- 

 tem of chains, drawing something like the ordinary draught, 

 but not exactly like that of the present day. That was the 

 only redeeming feature of his improvement ; but it was a 

 very cumbersome affair, requiring five or six oxen to draw 

 it, and the wheels were both alike, no provision being made 

 for the fact that one wheel was to run over soft ground, and 

 perhaps in a furrow. We cannot thank Tull much for im- 

 proving the plow. 



But I have said enough about England. We are not very 

 much interested in that. In the last hundred years we have 

 got ahead of them very fast in this country. I want to call 

 attention to the fact that the first person we can find who 

 took a particular interest in developing the plow upon sci- 

 entific principles was Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, who, 

 while he was Washington's minister to France, is found by 

 his note-book making a record of the unscientific and im- 

 practicable character of the plows which he saw used by the 

 peasants in France ; and in that note-book, afterward 

 published, we find the idea first expressed of making the 

 mould-board on the principle of the twist, which is the 

 recognized principle of the correct mould-board of the 

 present day. Jefferson submitted two papers to eminent 

 scientific societies upon the construction of the plow before 

 he returned to America, and he stands to-day, in France and 

 Great Britain, as the author of the first plow made upon 

 scientific principles. He made plows after his own pattern 

 upon returning to this country, and was one of the first, also, 

 to have the entire mould-board made of iron, if not the first. 

 Probably he was the first in this country. We all know the 

 interest that Webster took in the plow and in the history of 



