EAGLE SELF-SHARPENING PLOWS. 
43 
works in his every day practice , Otherwise it is 
only like Calvin Edson, the walking skeleton, 
dining on roast beef and plum pudding. 
What American farmers want, as we conceive, 
at the present moment, are plain and sensible rea¬ 
sons for our best agricultural practice, as it is, and 
equally common sense hints and directions for its 
improvement. Books written upon such a plan, 
by competent men, will go a thousand times farther 
toward making good husbandmen, and improving 
those already skilful, than a republication of all the 
elaborate English, French, or German systems of 
draining, subsoiling, and irrigating, that the best 
authors of the other side of the Atlantic have yet 
produced. 
It is idle to lay before farmers, in a country like 
ours, where capital is rarely or never employed in 
farming—where land is plentiful, but labor scarce 
and dear—systems of farming, based on just the 
contrary state of things—where farming is carried 
on with abundant capital, and where the price of 
labor and the means of tillage are such that it will 
pay a good interest upon the capital employed. It 
is very much like discoursing to the keeper of a 
“ country store,” upon the large principles of com¬ 
merce which govern The transactions of such 
houses as the Barings, or Brown, Brothers, and 
Co. 
We think, therefore, that Mr. Allen’s volume, 
the basis of which is good practical farming, as 
practised by the best cultivators in the United; 
States—with an intelligent reference to those prin¬ 
ciples of science which lie at the root of all suc¬ 
cessful practice, is likely to be of as much or more 
real service to us, than any work on agriculture yet 
issued from the press, and we gladly commend it 
to the perusal of every one of our readers engaged 
in the cultivation of land. 
Its character, indeed, is essentially that of a 
manual, or handbook. It is intended,” says the 
preface, “ as one of the first in the series of lessons 
for the American farmer. Its size precludes its 
embracing anything beyond the shortest summary 
of the principles and practice by which he should 
be guided in the honorable career he has selected. 
As a primary work, it is not desirable that it should 
comprise so much as to alarm the tyro in agricul¬ 
ture with the magnitude of his subject. A con¬ 
cise and popular exposition of the principal topics 
to which his attention will necessarily be directed, 
will, it is believed, in .connection with his own 
observation and practice, give him a taste for further 
research, which will lead him to the fullest attain¬ 
ment in agricultural knowledge, that could be ex¬ 
pected from his capacity and opportunities.” 
This is a very modest introduction to a work, 
Which, if only “a brief compend,” contains less 
speculation, and more pith and sense, than one in a 
hundred of the volumes now being offered on the 
cultivation of the soil.— Horticulturist. 
The above work is advertised for sale on our 
last page, price one dollar. 
EAGLE SELF-SHARPENING PLOWS. 
This is a .new article, recently got up 
by Messrs. Ruggles, Nourse & Mason of 
Massachusetts. Five sizes are made, 
varying from the small one-horse plow, 
up to the large breaking up plow. 
They have the same superior form and 
general construction as the celebrated 
Eagle plows of their make, with the 
exception that the point and share con¬ 
sist of two pieces which are made on an 
improved self-sharpening principle. 
The point, as shown detached at 1, 
is simply a bar of wrought iron steeled at 
each end, about twenty inches long, and 
passes upward into the body of the 
plow, where it is confined with one bolt. As it 
becomes shorter, and worn on the under side, it is 
readily moved forward and turned the other side 
up, thus always presenting a sharp point of full 
length and proper shape. When one end is worn 
off five inches, the other end is placed forward and 
performs a like service. The wing or share as 
shown, detached at 2, is either made of wrought 
iron with steel edge or of cast iron, and is also 
reversible, being used either end forward or either 
side up. 
Both point and share are so very simply con¬ 
structed that any blacksmith can replace them at 
trifling expense, or perpetuate the use of the original 
by new-laying with steel, as they become worn. 
There is a coulter of cast-iron a little back and 
above the point, shown detached at 3, forming a 
part of a cap, shown detached at 4, which cap 
protects the shin or forward part of the mould¬ 
A Self-Sharpening Flow.—Fig. 9. 
board. It is confined in its place by the same 
bolt that confines the point, and is cheaply replaced 
when worn. This is much less expensive, and in 
many kinds of soils quite as serviceable as a wrought 
coulter or cutter, as shown by the cut above. They 
are sold with one or both, or with the cap simply. 
We commend these plows particularly for the 
southern plantations, for their own blacksmiths can 
easily repair them. 
Self-sharpening points and shares have been con¬ 
sidered objectionable, inasmuch as they have not 
possessed sufficient strength, owing to their com¬ 
plicated construction of cast metal; but a single 
glance at these plows will convince any person, by 
the simple construction of the point and share of 
wrought iron and steel, that they combine strength 
and durability unequalled by any other form or 
construction, and that they are kept in repair at 
much less trouble and expense. 
