48 Report on Trials of Plows. 



by the lower land side edge of the furrow slice, as the mould- 

 board passes under it, which is called the line of transit. 



Fig. 112 is a front view in elevation of the same plow, and cor- 

 responding to Fig. Ill, Plate III; km is the base line, m g is the 

 land side plane in a vertical position, m also is the place of the 

 point of the share, and h i the line of junction between the neck 

 of the share and the mould-board; the remaining lines beyond h i 

 exhibit the outline of all the sections taken by the instrument in 

 reference to the lines in Fig. 111. Thus o og m is the section of 

 the entire body of the plow in the plane of the zero, o y o being 

 the outline of the mould-board at this section, and y the zero 

 point; aagm, the lirst section forward of the zero, b b g m, the 

 Sf.cond, and so on. In like manner, 1 Ig m is the first section 

 backward from the zero, 2 2 g 7n the next section backward, and 

 so on, each section so lettered and numbered having relation to 

 the divisions carrying the corresponding letters and numerals in 

 Fig. 111. The entire series of lines 112 2, etc., and a abb, etc., 

 thus form a series of profiles of the mould-board, supposing it to 

 be cut vertically by planes at right angles to the land side of the 

 plow. In Fig. 112, also, the dotted line, m 3/ 5;, represents the 

 line of transit, as in Fig. Ill, and zh represents a transverse sec- 

 tion of the slice as finally deposited by the mould-board. 



Mr. Stephens, it will be observed, gives none of the horizontal 

 lines, confining himself wholly to the vertical lines; in fact, ver}^ 

 little attention is paid to these lines in any part of Europe, being 

 left to arrange themselves by chance out of the arrangement of the 

 vertical lines, which alone receive attention. In this respect it 

 will be seen hereafter they dififer very materially from the best 

 class of American plows, in which much attention is very properly 

 ffiven to the arrangement of the transverse lines. 



The reason for this difl'erence is found in the fact that the plow- 

 men of Great Britain havve an almost superstitious reverence for 

 the high shouldered, crested furrow. The proprietor and the 

 plowman both delight to stand on the headland when the work is 

 done and survey the even furrows, laid so straight that the pencil 

 rather than the plow would seem to have traced them. The fur- 

 rows must be of precisely even thickness, in all their length. No 

 departure from a mathematical straight line is tolerated. You 

 must see a mouse running in the bottom of every furrow from 

 end to end. But the crowning glory in their eyes was to see the 

 crownino; auijle of the furrow slice unbroken and unabraded from 



