INTRODUCTION. xix 



A distinctive feature in American ploughs is their great simplicity, lightness of draught, neatness 

 and cheapness, which is often in striking contrast with those of foreign make. This economy of power 

 attracted attention to two ploughs sent, in 1815, to Robert Barclay, of Bury Hill, near Dorking, in Eng 

 land, by Judge Peters, president of the Philadelphia Society of Agriculture, the seal of which society, by 

 the way, bears as a device a representation of the plough of the date of 1785. The ploughs referred to 

 were made by order of Mr. Peters, to combine the best principles and forms of American ploughs, and 

 when tested in August of that year against the best English ploughs, were found to do the work quite 

 as well and as easily with two horses as the other did with four. American ploughs obtained favor 

 with English farmers for substantially the same characteristics, namely, &quot;extraordinary cheapness 

 and lightness of draught,&quot; at the trial of ploughs at Ilounslow during the great exhibition in 1851. 



In the early part of this century the manufactories of ploughs in the United States were few and 

 small in size. It has since become an important branch of the agricultural implement business. 

 Ploughs were made and exported in considerable quantity at Enfield, Connecticut, previous to 1819. 

 One of the largest establishments in this or any country, devoted chiefly to plough-making, was estab 

 lished in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1829. In 1836 it made by steam-power one hundred ploughs daily, 

 of patterns adapted largely for the lower Mississippi, and cotton and prairie lands of the south and west. 

 The iron-centre plough, and hill-side revolving beam-plough, were among the valuable modifications 

 originated by the concern which now makes also the steel-ploughs so valued in prairie fanning. Another 

 steam-plough factory in Pittsburg made in 183G about 4,000 ploughs annually, including wood and cast- 

 iron ploughs, and a great variety of other kinds. These two factories, together, made 34,000 ploughs 

 yearly, of the value of $174,000. There are several other extensive and numerous smaller manufactories 

 throughout the country, particularly in the western States, in which plough-making is carried on as a 

 specialty. It forms, however, a branch of the general manufacture of agricultural implements. In 

 the best conducted of these, machinery is extensively employed, and such a division of labor as to 

 secure great speed and perfection of workmanship, as well as a great reduction of the cost. For each 

 size and pattern of plough, the several parts subject to wear are made all alike, so as to fit any plough of 

 that class, and allow it to be readily replaced without the aid of the plough-right. Sulky-ploughs, with a 

 scat for the driver, and gang-ploughs, cutting several furrows at a time, have been introduced, but have 

 not proved generally satisfactory. Rolling or wheel coulters have, in many cases, taken the place of tin; 

 old standing coulter. Many ploughs now have a hook attached for turning the weeds under the furrow, 

 an important improvement for prairie farms, where weeds, like other vegetation, are luxuriant. 



Several attempts were made in 1858, and the following years to introduce steam-ploughs, for which 

 the Illinois Central Railroad Company offered a premium of 83,000. They have been employed with 

 success for several years in Great Britain. English steam-ploughs are operated by stationary engines 

 placed at one side of the field, and draw the plough from one side to the other by means of wire-chains. 

 At other seasons the engines are used in driving threshing-machines and performing other farm labor. 

 Our inventors have employed traction engines of several tons weight, which on hard ground worked 

 satisfactorily, but on cultivated or moist soil were found to bury themselves inextricably in the ground. 

 They appear to have been abandoned for the present. 



A more recent machine, which promises to be a valuable one, is the rotary-spader, which, with 

 the power of four horses, spades the ground eight inches deep and three feet wide, at the rate of five 

 or six acres a day. It is rather too costly for small farms, but on large ones may prove valuable, and 

 in time may be adapted to steam-power. 



Many improvements have been made in implements for cultivating corn and other hoed crops, 

 among which the horse-hoe or cultivator is exceedingly popular, and in corn-growing districts has 

 nearly supplied the loss of manual labor by the war. The importance of frequently stirring the soil 

 is becoming better understood, and in our dry climate the effects of severe drought may be almrst 

 entirely obviated by the use of the cultivator on rich, well-prepared lands. 



