18 Refoet on Trials of Plows. 



to it in ease of management, in ability to do good work, and in 

 lightness of draft. 



We give this plow and its subordinate parts on Plate I, as illus- 

 trating the history of ploAvs, and as a curious example of the 

 slowness with which real improvements were adopted in agricul- 

 tui-al communities. We may add, that Tull published another 

 edition of his work in 1762, thirty-two years after the introduc- 

 tion of the Rotherham plow, in which he still adheres to his pre- 

 ference for the old Berkshire. 



Tull was strongly in favor of four coultered plows, such as is 

 shown in Plate I, fig. 2. His eighteenth chapter is devoted to a 

 dialogue between a farmer and himself, in which he gives his 

 reasons for his preference of that form of plow. His chief reasons 

 are briefly these: It divides the land more completely, aflbrding 

 greater access to air and moisture. The furrow being cut into 

 four parts, it will have four times the superfices that it would have 

 without the coulter cuts; but this is not all. "It is more divided 

 crossways, viz : The ground wrest presses and breaks the lower 

 (or right hand) quarter; the other three quarters, in rising and 

 coming over the earth board, must make a crooked line about a 

 fourth longer than the straight one they made before moved; 

 therefore, their thinness not being able to hold them together, 

 they are broken into many more pieces for want of tenacity to 

 extend to a longer line, contrary to a whole furrow, whose great 

 breadth enables it to stretch and extend from a shorter to a longer 

 line without breaking; and, as it is turned oft', the parts are drawn 

 together again by the spring of the turf, and so remain whole 

 after plowing." 



The objects which Mr. Tull sought to accomplish were very 

 desirable, but the four coultered plow was never very generally 

 adopted; and as the same objects have been since accomplished 

 in a far more simple and philosophical manner, it has fallen into 

 utter oblivion. 



Fig. 1 represents the old Berkshire plow, pure and simple. 

 The plow head consists of a pair of wheels, A B, and their axis. 

 Two crow staves, D D, through which two rows of holes are per- 

 forated, by means of which the pillow, E, upon which the beam 

 rests, is elevated or depressed. H, the tow chain which fastens 

 the plow to the head. L, the bridle ch.iin, one end whereof is 

 fastened to the beam by a pin, and the other end to the top of 

 the stake, which is held up to the left crow staft' by the ring M. 



