>68 



[Assembly 



of the beam. For hard ground 2 feet, and for mellow soil 2 feet 4 

 inches are the extreme lengths. 



I 

 Owing to the ignorance and prejudice of farmers, it has cost me 

 more labor to introduce my plow than to make the improvements. 

 These difficulties were aggravated by having my improvements pi- 

 rated by almost every plow maker in the country. The province of 

 Congress is to give protection to the real inventor, not to convey his 

 improvements to another. Every farmer has a right to his own 

 field, and its products; equally inalienable are the rights of inven- 

 tors. 



My long experience in the construction and great familiarity wiih 

 the use of the plow, have led me to comprise the excellencies of the 

 plow in seven essential points — mateiials, strength, draught, expense 

 of first construction, workmanship, yearly expenses and performance. 

 A deficiency in one of these may make the plow comparatively 

 worthless. 



Mr. Wood lays it down as a scientific principle, that the lines of 

 draught of the mouldboard should be as shown in Fig. 1; that is, be- 



Fig. V 



ginning at the point of the share, draw a straight line to the lippei 

 edge of the mouldboard behind — that this straight line should rest 

 upon the external surface of the mouldboard all the way up to the 

 upper edge of the mouldboard behind. This he says, is the line the 



