Ploughs and Ploughing. 



297 



reasons ploughing matches are looked on with disfavour in 

 some districts. 



The Share. 



One or two points about the share itself are interesting. A 

 level-bottomed furrow is desirable, so that a good solid 

 rectangular furrow-slice may be cut out. At one time, how- 

 ever — and in many cases even yet — it was customary to use a 

 share with a high feather or wing, so that the slice was cut out 

 deep at the land side and shallow at the other — giving a 



1 



Fig. 2. — Styles of Furrow- slice. 



trapezoidal section — showing a " crested " top when finished, 

 but a " false " bottom and loose packing below. Nowadays, 

 when we want " broken " work all over the surface, the modern 

 shares are made with a level cutting edge of chilled steel, 

 which scoops out the lot quite clean and makes work much 

 better for the land and the crops than the old foolish 

 method. 



The four most typical styles of ploughing, which depend 

 very largely on the shape and set of the share, are shown in 

 Fig. 2. They are (1) Crested, (2) Rectangular, (3) Parallelo- 

 gram matic, and (4) Broken styles. The first, as has just been 



