No. 216.] 



269 



furrow follows. Now I assert that this is not in accordance with 

 the natural operations of the furrow as it rises and turns from its 

 horizontal to its perpendicular and inclined position. Practical ex- 

 perience has shown me that the surface of the mouldboard should 

 be a curve as shown by a straight line drawn from the forward 

 point on the lower side of the mouldboard diagonally to the upper 

 end. This line will be one inch above the surface in the middle. 

 Lines drawn at right angles to this line, will be one quarter of an 

 inch above the surface. The furrow will follow the curved lines in- 

 dicated in cut Fig. 2. 



Fig. 2. 



The time and money I have expended on the plow are equivalent 

 to five thousand dollars. The advantages the public have derived 

 can be estimated by hundreds of thousands, while my returns have 

 not exceeded one thousand dollars. Plough makers have paid to 

 Jethro Wood sums that should have come to me the real inventor of 

 the improvements. This was done in consequence of improper laws 

 passed by Congress in his favor. 



In Mr. Jefferson's letter to Sir John Sinclair in 1798, you will 

 find Mr. Wood's mouldboard described. In Ransom's history of ag- 

 ricultural implements, Johnson's encyclopedia of agriculture, and in 

 the English journals since 1800, you will see that Robert Ransom 

 invented a cast iron share as early as 1785. He also invented the 

 process of chilling the point of the share. A farmer in Suffolk, 

 England, made, in 1790, cast landsides. Mr. NeM'bold, of Orange 



