THE JOURNAL 



OF THE 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Vol. X. No. 3. DECEMBER, 1903. 



PLOUGHS AND PLOUGHING. 



In anqient times, and even up till within the memory of 

 people still living, the plough consisted simply of the crooked 

 branch of a tree : the horse was yoked to one end, the man 

 held the other, while a projecting middle part — sharpened to a 

 point — formed a sort of grubber which was forcibly dragged 

 through the soil, making a rut in which the seed was deposited. 

 The covering of the wearing parts with plates of iron, the 

 fitting on of a cutting-knife or coulter in front, and the forming 

 of a twist on the wrest or mouldboard, whereby the soil could 

 be turned or inverted, came later on ; while the iron plough was 

 in many cases only introduced at the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century. Even now, at the commencement of the 

 twentieth century and within twenty miles of London, the 

 w r ooden plough still obtains, and farmers are only beginning 

 to hear of the iron plough — so great is the conservatism of 

 a certain type of mind, and so little will some farmers try to 

 move with the times or improve the methods of their grand- 

 fathers. 



The modern iron swing plough was first evolved in Holland, 

 and introduced into Great Britain about 150 years ago under 

 the name of the Dutch or Rotherham plough ; later on, Small 

 and Wilkie took the matter up and developed two forms, each 

 famous in their day — the East Lothian and the Lanarkshire — 

 which became the types for the greater part of the country 

 until the present generation, when the introduction of the 

 chilled steel plough from America upset all our ideas on the 



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