328 ' [Assembly 



project from the body of the wedge at a sharj) angle as in the old 

 Scotch plough or in a curved line as in the English. The first may 

 be pronounced at once a defective adjustment, as the furrow slice 

 must maintain a powerful and continual resistance, whereas the lat- 

 ter throws it off with more niceness and facility. The sock or share 

 fitted on the wedge may either penetrate the ground by a sharp point 

 and tear up the furrow from the bottom by mere violence or it may 

 be furnished with a feather to cut it off easily and with little hin- 

 drance or resistance. The beam may be pierced for one coulter 

 merely to part the sod from the firm land and throw it off in an un- 

 broken body, or it may be armed with two or more to cut it into nar- 

 row strips before it is laid over by the mould-board. Tull invented 

 a four coultered plough for tilling grass lands : and be conceived 

 that material benefit was derived from this contrivance, because in 

 place of turning it over it was cut into small furrow slices before 

 the sock raised it from the bottom and thus it was well pulverized. 

 At the end of the beam there may be a simple muzzle to which the 

 swingle-tree may be hooked, or one moveable on a pivot, and secur- 

 ed by a hind bolt to raise or depress the draught, — with the front 

 divided into notches to incline the share either to the land or fur- 

 row side. In addition to these essential parts of this important im- 

 plement of husbandry, — the plough — there is another which ought 

 not perhaps to be overlooked: the throat or breast as we believe it 

 is usually called, which may be formed in a straight line behind and 

 equidistant from the coulter; or it may be fashioned into a gentle 

 bend widening as it rises, that the danger of choking may be 

 avoided. 



It may be apparent from what we have said to all discreet prac- 

 tical farmers as well as mechanics ordinarily skilled in plough making 

 that their structure may be almost infinitely diversified and that a 

 great variety may be expected both with us and in Europe as a mat- 

 ter of course. To delineate the whole of these would be a vain and 

 useless task, and therefore we shall only select for notice a few dis- 

 tinguished by a happy combination, or some peculiarity which seems 

 to adapt them for our American husbandry. 



The first improvement of note in the plough in England was ef- 

 fected by Foljambe of Rothram, about 125 years ago, and known to 

 this day as the Rotheram plough. Before this period the plough 

 in England was a rude, unwieldy, heavy machine, its parts badly ad- 

 justed, the points of friction or contact of some of these last with 

 the earth numerous, thus increasing greatly the diflSculties of its 



