2 9 8 



Ploughs and Ploughing. 



mentioned, has always been objectionable ; the second is the 

 type which is largely followed with ordinary ploughs ; while the 

 last is the type now approved of as done by the various forms 

 of chilled steel, digging, and disc ploughs. The ordinary 

 rectangular form can be given all the advantages of " cresting," 

 however, by setting the coulters at a small angle to the perpen- 

 dicular (looked at edgeways), as shown in No. 3 ; but now, 

 when we use corn drills and cultivate and harrow the ploughed 

 land before sowing the seed, there is no advantage in cresting : 

 breaking or crumpling up the soil, burying the surface rubbish 

 completely, and getting over the ground quickly are the points 

 to be aimed at. 



Wheels. 



One of the first and one of the greatest advances in the 

 improvement of the plough was the application of wheels to 

 it, whereby the depth and width of the furrow-slice could be 

 regulated. Someone has said that the ancient Greeks used 

 wheel ploughs, and Jethro Tull illustrates these in his work on 

 Husbandry published in 1743, so that the idea is not quite 

 new, but it is a peculiar fact that while wheeled ploughs have 

 always been common in some parts of England, the)' were 

 almost unknown in Scotland until quite recently. Indeed, 

 Stephens, in his Book of the Farm, first published in 1842, 

 blames English farmers for approving of their use, as tending 

 to make the work too easy and encouraging laziness among 

 the ploughmen and also increasing the draught to the 

 horses. We have moved a long way forward since then, and 

 now, whatever prejudice may exist in some districts against 

 wheels — and there are some bad cases known to the writer 

 — there is no gainsaying the fact that their modern adapta- 

 tion is a decided advance in several ways. They keep the 

 plough steadily at the one regular depth and width, so that 

 when once set an inferior workman can do good work, and a 

 skim-coulter acts with more regularity ; they reduce the actual 

 draught in exactly the same way that a wheeled carriage 

 requires less draught than a sleigh ; and they do away with 

 the jerkiness so common with a swing plough in the hands 

 of an inferior ploughman and so uncomfortable to the 

 horses. Further, the adjustment of the line of draught does 



