290 



Ploughs and Ploughing. 



matter and quite revolutionised the style of work in the most 

 go-ahead districts. 



MecJianical Laws. 



Before going any further it is perhaps desirable to explain 

 some of the mechanical laws which govern the action and use 

 of a machine, however simple ; and how these affect the con- 

 struction and use of the plough. Looked at in its simplest form 

 the plough is a combination of the wedge and the lever : the 

 " body " of the plough is the wedge which splits off the furrow- 

 slice from the solid " land," while the handles or stilts act as a 

 lever for moving this wedge up, down, or sideways. 



Taking the handles first : as the longer the arm of a lever is 

 the more powerful will it be, and the more easily will any given 

 body be moved by it, so therefore the longer the handles of 

 a plough are the more comfortably will the ploughman hold 

 his tool. On the other hand, if they are too long he has less 

 control of his horses, longer reins will be needed, and a greater 

 arc walked round while turning at the land-ends, and the 

 headlands also must be wider. The extreme length the writer 

 has seen and handled on a plough was on one exhibited by the 

 Ballarat Agricultural Society at the Colonial Exhibition in 

 London in 1886, on which the handles or stilts measured 10 

 feet from points to heel of body. Practical experience in this 

 country has shown, however, that the most convenient length 

 consistent with power is about 6 feet. In many foreign 

 forms, especially those introduced from America, the handles 

 are very much less than this — not much over 3 feet — and it 

 is rather a puzzle to understand how they are held with 

 any comfort. On the fluffy black soil of the prairies, however, 

 as on some of our sandy and peaty soils at home, almost 

 any kind of plough will work somehow. The writer has had 

 an opportunity of trying these ploughs practically both in 

 America and at home, and has found that the plough with 

 short handles, which can be held quite easily in the loam of the 

 prairie, is an absolute failure on the clay of Essex, thus vindi- 

 cating the correctness of the laws of the lever. This fault 

 has been so glaring in the case of ploughs imported to this 

 country from the United States and Canada that many of the 



