xviii INTRODUCTION. 



plated over with sheet-iron or tin, and with short upright handles, requiring a strong man to guide it. 

 The bar-share plough was another form still remembered by many for its rudely fitted wooden mould- 

 board and coulter, and immense friction from the rough iron bar which formed the landsidc. The 

 Bull-plough was similar in form, but without a coulter. Even the shovel-plough, not unlike the rude 

 instrument still used by the Chinese, may be remembered by some, and was in common use in the 

 cotton States a lew years since. As early as 1765 the London Society of Arts awarded a gold medal 

 to Benjamin Gale, of KilHngworth, Connecticut, for a drill-plough, the invention of which was claimed 

 by Benoni Billiard, of the same place. The first patent taken out after the organization of the United 

 States Patent Office was in June, 1797, by Charles Newbold, of Burlington, New Jersey, for the cast- 

 iron plough already mentioned, which combined the mould-board, share and landside, all in one casting. 

 He afterwards substituted wrought-iron shares, objections having been made to the cast iron probably 

 because not chill-hardened. He did not succeed in getting them into permanent favor, although cast- 

 iron ploughs were advertised for sale in New York in the year 1800, by Peter J. Curtenius, a large iron 

 founder of the city. Newbold was paid one thousand dollars by David Peacock, a fellow-townsman, 

 who, in April, 1807, patented a modification of the iron plough, having the mould-board and landside 

 cast separate, with a wrought-iron steel-edged share attached. 



As early as 1798 Mr. Jefferson also exercised his mechanical tastes in improving the mould-board 

 of ploughs, which he afterwards adapted to an improved plough sent him by the Agricultural Society of 

 the Department of the Seine, in France. His son-in-law, Mr. Randolph, whom Mr. Jefferson thought 

 probably the best farmer in Virginia, invented a side-hill plough, adapted for the hilly regions of that 

 State, and designed to turn horizontally, in the same direction, the sides of steep hills, which, in northern 

 Europe, was effected by a shifting mould-board, constituting the variety called turn-wrest ploughs. 

 Colonel Randolph s plough was made with two wings welded to the same bar, with their planes at right 

 angles to each other, so that by turning the bar, adjusted as an axis, either wing could be laid flat on 

 the ground, while the other, standing vertically, served as a mould-board. Mr. Jefferson advocated an 

 adherence to scientific principles in the construction of the plough. Perhaps the first attempt to carry 

 out these suggestions was made by Robert Smith, of Pennsylvania, who, in May, 1800, took out the 

 first patent for the mould-board alone of a plough. It was of cast iron, and of improved form, the prin 

 ciples of which were published by him. In July, 1814, Jethro Wood, of Scipio, New York, was granted 

 a patent for a cast-iron plough having the mould-plate, share, and landside cast in three parts. The 

 mould-plate combined the mechanical principles of the wedge and screw in raising and inverting the 

 furrow-slice. It became the foundation of many patented improvements of later date, and of a hand 

 some competence to the inventor, who, in 1819, received a second patent, which was renewed by act of 

 Congress in 1832. 



A series of improvements in the cast-iron ploughs was commenced about 1810 by Josiah Ducher, 

 of New York, which were patented in 1822. Some of them are still retained in use. Two improve 

 ments in the cast-iron plough, designed to make it easier of draught, were covered by letters patent 

 issued in April, 1821, to A L. & E. A. Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey. One of these was for 

 hardening the cutting-edges and parts exposed to wear by cold-chilling them. Four other patents 

 on the cast-iron plough were granted the same year. Much credit is also due to Joel Nourse, of Massa 

 chusetts, and his partners, for improving and perfecting the cast-iron plough, which was comparatively a 

 rude instrument, in limited demand, as late as 183G, when they commenced the manufacture of agricul 

 tural implements at Worcester. The sale of twenty thousand ploughs in a single year by this firm, 

 within twenty years after they commenced business, indicated the increased demand for ploughs, which 

 they were able to supply, of one hundred and fifty different forms and sizes. Among these were 

 subsoil ploughs adapted to teams of from one to six horses, the first implement of that kind in the United 

 States having been imported by them in 1840 from Scotland, and subsequently improved by making it 

 more simple, light, and cheap in construction. American hill-side ploughs are now exported to Great 

 Britain. The number of patents granted for ploughs previous to 1830 was 124, and up to 1848 had 

 reached between three and four hundred. 



