102 Report on Trials of Plows. 



Mr. Minor made a semi-cylinder of the length of the proposed 

 plow, and of the same diameter as the width of the proposed 

 furrow; the cylindrical surface was divided in both directions by 

 lines one inch apart. A line beginning at the left rear corner was 

 traced diagonally through the corners of the squares to the right 

 front corner; the line thus formed was applied from the point of 

 the share to the rear upper wing of the mould-board, and the 

 pattern was worked down until it accurately coincided with it; 

 there is a series of straight lines also in this plow running from 

 front to rear. Such is the description of the principles of the 

 Peekskill plow given us in the year 1850 by Mr. Minor. We 

 wrote to Mr. Brown, of the Peekskill Avorks, to know whether our 

 recollections were correct. He replied as follows: "Your state- 

 ment of the principles of Mr. Minor's plows expresses his ideas, 

 as far as it goes, as well as they can be briefly expressed by words, 

 but it seems to me to convey no idea of the helicoidal torsion 

 which, being moderate, constitutes the ' easy lines' of Mr. Minor's 

 plows." 



The Peekskill plows have transverse straight lines, as we have 

 before stated. The first or lowest of these in the No. 21 plow 

 makes an angle of 21 deg. with the plane of the sole. The upper 

 line is very nearly horizontal; the intermediate lines difler in the 

 angle which they make with the plane of the sole by regular 

 gradations; if they are produced backward they would approxi- 

 mate to the form of a fan, but they do not radiate from a common 

 centre. The lines running from the bottom to the top of the 

 plow also vary in the angles which the}^ make with the vertical 

 line which in this plow is situated about five inches in front of the 

 extreme rear angle of the mould-board. The first of these lines 

 forms an angle of about 40 deg. with the vertical, and they regu- 

 larly increase as they approach the vertical. The length of this 

 plow from the point to the extreme rear angle of the mould-board 

 is thirty-five and a half inches; the length of feather fourteen and 

 a half inches; distance from land side to the point of the feather, 

 ten inches; length of land side twenty-seven inches; distance from 

 sole to under side of the beam at the standard, fourteen inches. A 

 figure of this plow is given in Transactions of the New York State 

 Agricultural Society for 1850, page sixty-one. There can be no 

 doubt of the great excellence of this plow; its chief defect is, 

 that its curves are too regular, and therefore it fails in pulverizing 



