86 Report on Trials of Plows. 



important, affording weight and strength and substance to the 

 plow, enabling it both to sustain the cutting edge for separating 

 and elevating the soil in swards, and likewise the standard for 

 conncctino; the mould-board with the beam. The figure of the 

 mould-board, as observed from the furrow side, is a sort of irregu- 

 lar pentagon or five sided plane, though curved, and inclined in 

 a peculiar manner. Its two lower sides, b a and a c, touch the 

 ground, or are intended to do so, while the three other sides, c d, 

 d e and e 5, enter into the composition of the oblique or slanting 

 mould-board overhanging behind, vertical, midway and projecting 

 forward. The angle of the mould-board, as it departs from the 

 foremost point of the land side, is about 42 deg., and the length 

 of it, or in other words, the first side, a b^ is, eleven inches. The 

 line of the next, or the second side, a c, is nearly but not exactly 

 parallel with the before mentioned right lined land side, for it 

 widens or diverges from the angle at which the first side, a b^ 

 and the second side, a c, join towards its posterior or hindermosL 

 point as much as one inch; hence the distance from the hinder- 

 most point of the mould-board at the angle of the second and third 

 sides, a c d, directly across to the land side, is one inch more than 

 it is from the angle of the first and second sides directly across. 

 The length of the second side, a c, is eight inches. The next 

 side, or what is here denominated the third side, c d, leaves the 

 ground or furrow in a slanting direction, backward, and with an 

 overhanging curve exceeding the perpendicular outwards from 

 thence to six inches, according to the size of the plow; the length 

 of this third side is fourteen inches and one-half. The fourth 

 side, d e, of the mould-board is horizontal, or nearly so; extend- 

 ing from the uppermost point of the third side to the fore part 

 or pitch is eighteen inches. The fifth or last side, e b, descends 

 or slopes from the last mentioned mark, spot or pitch to the place 

 of beo-innino;. 



At the low and fore part of the mould-board, where it joins 

 the land side, its length is thirteen inches. ****** 

 The peculiar curve has been compared to a screw auger and to 

 the prow of a ship, but neither of these similitudes conveys the 

 fair and prope-r notion of the inventor. It has the following 

 properties: A right line drawn by a chalked string, or by a 

 straight ruler, diagonally or obliquely upwards and backwards 

 from a point two and a half inches above the lip or extremity of 

 the mould-l)oard to the an<j;lc where the third and fourth sides 



