History of the Plow. 



17 



This plow was niade of wood, covered in the working parts 

 with sheet iron, which needed frequent renewal. It is the first, 

 so far as we know, which provided a bridle, e, Fig. 16, by which 

 the plow could be turned to or from land. The point is conical, 



which enters the land on the principle of burrowing or mining, 

 rather than by the clean chisel cut now adopted, which must have 

 considerably increased the power required to operate it; still, a 

 comparison of it with its predecessors shows that it must have 



done much better woik, and with less expenditure of power. It 

 will also 1)e seen, on examination of the mould board, that the 

 maker had empirically approximated to the true theory, as the 

 two wedges, lateral and vertical, are connected by a curve line, 

 so that the furrow slice is first raised a little and is then gradu- 

 ally turned over to one side. 



Ten years after the letters patent 

 were granted to Foljambe for thr 

 Rotherham plow, Jethro TuU pul)- 

 lished a work on " Horse-hoeing 

 Husbandry," the first edition of 

 which was published in 1730. In this work, although TuU was 

 a thorough radical in the cause of agricultural improvement, he 

 gives the preference to the old Berkshire plow, which will be 

 seen, on comparison with the Rotherham plow, to be far inferior 

 2 



F'iff. f6. 



