THE PLOW IN AMERICA 151 



cial scale which now prevails in the West rather the home- 

 spun type, where, as already pointed out, the average farmer 

 raised a variety of products for his own use, with a small sur- 

 plus to exchange for the few articles of commerce indulged 

 in at that time. 



The long, gently curving moldboard, with friction reduced 

 to a minimum, enabled the farmer to uproot the stubborn sod 

 with the""nTSritecr power at his disposal, and other tillage im- 

 plements were devised to make up for the deficiencies of the 

 plow as a pulverizer^ The firm, tenacious nature of the sooT 

 permitted the use of curved wrought iron rods in place of the 

 steel moldboard, and many "prairie sod breakers" of this type 

 are still used. They are slightly cheaper, and give equally 

 good results. As the country grew older, the "timber" soils 

 lost their high content of vegetable matter under the careless 

 methods of farming, and complaints were heard regarding the 

 scouring in the sticky ground. From the very first the prairie 

 sods presented the same problem to the plowmaker. 



It is not known who discovered that a high grade of steel 

 would scour under Western conditions, but the first recorded 

 construction of a steel plow took place in Chicago in 1833. 

 John Lane, the builder, took three lengths of steel cut from an 

 old saw to fashion his moldboard, and another for the share. 

 All four were fastened to a frame, or anchor wing, which served 

 as the shin of the plow. For several years he continued to buy 

 up old saws from which to make plows, until he had exhausted 

 the supply. Fortunately, he was finally able to secure from 

 Pittsburg saw blanks of sufficient width so that two were 

 enough for a moldboard, and about 1839 or 1840 he obtained 

 a special width, rolled twelve inches wide, that, as one writer 

 says, "gave quite a boom to the infant industry." 



John Deere, a blacksmith at Grand Detour, 111., built hi 

 1837 three steel plows, one of which is still in existence. More 

 fortunate than Lane, he obtained an old sawmill saw from 

 which to form his one-piece share and moldboard. Two 



