PLOUGH, PLOUGHING. part of the beam is formed with an upward curve; at its extremity, is placed the bridle, N, to which the horses are attached by means of swing-trees and chains or traces, and the object of which is to enable the workman to elevate or depress the line of draught, or move it to the right hand or the left, as may be found necessary. The left sides of the coulter, share, and framework ADEB, should evidently be in the same vertical plane. The form of the mould-board is of the utmost importance, and has chiefly attracted the attention of agricultural machinists since the time when improvements on the plough were first projected. Its office being to raise and turn the sod, it is necessary that the surface should slope upwards and outwards from the front, so as to apply a pressure in both directions, and, accordingly, the surface is so shaped that from the point of the share, where it is horizontal, it gradually curves upwards, till, at the extremity, P, it inclines over away from the body of the plough. The gradual change produced on the position of the furrow-slice is seen in fig. 3, where ABCD on the left-hand side, represents the slice untouched by the plough, AD being the line of section by the coulter; DC by the share; BC, the open side from which the previous furrow (E) to the right-hand side has been separated; and the four successive rectangles, ABCD to the right, illustrate the su cessive changes of position of the furrow as the mould-board is pushed forward under and on its left side, till it is finally left, as represented in ABCD on the right hand; E, F, G are furrows which have previously been laid in their proper position. The advantages of laying the furrows in the position shewn are these: in the first place, the weedy side of each furrow being closely applied to the previous furrow, and kept pressed against it by its own weight, the weeds are completely buried; secondly, the ridged surface thus presented, affords the means of covering the seed by harrowing; and lastly, the openings below increase the amount of surface accessible to air, and drain off superfluous water. The plough is wholly formed of iron; the share and the framework of malleable, and the mouldboard of cast iron; while the coulter is frequently welded with steel on the right-hand side, the better to resist attrition. In most of the English (as distinguished from the Scotch) ploughs, wheels are attached at or near the front end of the bearn, a contrivance which renders the implement more steady in its motion, more easily managed, and capable of doing better work in the hands of an inferior workman; but it is generally believed, in Scotland at least, that the plough without wheels, or swing-plough, as it is technically termed, is greatly more efficient in the hands of a thoroughly skilled ploughman. The usual dimensions of the furrowslice in lea or hay-stubble are 8 or 9 inches in breadth by 6 in depth; and in land for green crop, 10 inches in breadth, and 7 or 8 in depth; though shallower ploughing is not unfrequently adopted, especially on thin soils. Other kinds of ploughs are used for special purposes, such as trench-ploughs, which are made on the and stronger, so as to bring up a portion of the same principle as the common plough, but larger subsoil to the surface; subsoil ploughs, which have subsoil, thus facilitating drainage; double mouldno mould-board, and merely stir and break up the board ploughs, which are merely common ploughs with a mould-board on each side, and are employed for water-furrowing, or for earthing up potatoes, &c. Of each of these ploughs, there are many varieties, each maker having generally some peculiar views regarding the form and proportion of some parts or the whole of the instrument, and this is specially the case at the present time, when competition between makers has become so active. For those who wish to study minutely the best form of plough, it will be necessary to consult works on agriculture and agricultural implements. There is, however. one very peculiar form of plough much used in various parts of England, which deserves more particular notice; this is the turn-unrest plough. Its chief peculiarity is, that instead of one, it has two mould-boards, one on each side, and these are alternately brought into operation, so that the furrow is always turned over in the same direction. The mould-boards are firmly fastened together in front, and kept at a constant distance from each other behind, by means of struts, while the handles are movable with reference to them; the mould-board which is intended to be used being pushed away from, and the other (which for the time does the same work as the vertical surface ADEB in fig. 1) brought nearer to the line of the beam; of course, when the next furrow is ploughed, the mould-boards exchange adjustments. This form of plough is very useful in Fig. 4. ploughing along a hillside, as by it all the furrows can be turned over towards the hill, thus preventing the natural tendency of the soal to work itself PLOUGH, PLOUGHING. downwards, leaving the upper portions bare. The form (fig. 4) here given is the rudest and least desirable form of the turn-wrest; it is that which is used in Kent, and there much esteemed. instances consisted of little more than a pointed stick, which was forced into the ground as it was drawn forward. In fact, the earliest ploughs were neither more nor less than varieties of the Hoe The operation of ploughing we can only notice (q. v.), worked by pressing the point into the ground briefly. The usual breadth of a ridge being taken instead of by percusas 18 feet, the ploughman sets up a line of poles sion. The earliest along the middle of the first ridge, to guide form of the Greek him in a straight line. Along this line marked plough, the autoguon with poles he drives his plough, throwing out a (fig. 5, a), is an example furrow, and after reaching the headland,* turns his of this; it was merely horses, and returning on the same track, throws out the trunk of a small a furrow on the opposite side. He then enters his tree, which had two plough on the left side of the double furrow, at a branches opposite to distance of 8 to 10 inches, according to circum- each other, one branch stances, and throws back the furrow previously forming the share and thrown out on that side; returning by the other the other the handle, side, and doing the same with the other thrown- while the trunk out furrow. This process is termed feering. He formed the pole or has now two furrows turned up and leaning beam. The more imagainst each other, and he then proceeds to add proved form, the furrow to furrow on each side alternately of the pekton, in use among first pair, till a whole ridge is completed; or he the Greeks, was not may (which is the preferable plan) plough the inner substantially different from the modern form in half of the first ridge and the first half of the second use in Mysia (fig. 5). The ancient Egyptian ridge. This process is termed gathering; and a plough in one of its early stages is represented in repetition of it on the same land, twice-gathering; fig. 6, and, like the two forms above described, but this is only practised on strong wet land. is devoid of all apparatus enabling the labourer Cleaving is the opposite to gathering, the furrows in the former case forming the centre of the ridge of the latter, and the position of all the furrows being reversed. Casting or coupling ridges is now by far the most common method of ploughing, and consists in the formation of ridges of 36 feet, or twice the usual width, the first feering being made close along the side of the field, and the next at a distance of the width of two ridges, and so on. The first essential property of every plough is, that it shall throw the furrow cleanly off the mould-board; the next, that it shall lay it in that position which best exposes the soil Fig. 7.-Modern Syrian Plough. Fig. 6. to the action of the air, hence care must be taken | to guide it, all that he can do being to press (by that the mould-board be neither too long nor too his weight applied to the handle) the share into short, as in the former case it plasters up the surface of the furrow, and in the latter destroys its form. The plough is one of the most ancient of implements, and is mentioned in the Old Testament at a the earth. The Egyptians, however, gradually improved the form, till it assumed the appearance of a hollow wedge formed by the two handles joined at the bottom, and with the beam fastened between the handles a little above their point of junction. The share was the point of the wedge, and the handles were placed almost upright; this is in all essential particulars thearaire' still used in many rural districts of France, and also corresponds very closely to the modern Syrian plough (fig. 7). The Romans, an essentially practical nation, largely improved on the plough, adding to it the coulter and mould-board, and occasionally attaching wheels to the beam to prevent the share from going too deep into the earth (fig. 8). A later and more improved form, in which the handles were made to incline backwards and the coulter was placed so far back as to be directly above the share, is still in use in the north of Italy. The ploughs used in the present day in most other parts of the continent are equally rude and inefficient with the French and Italian implethe American aborigines, though Prescott describes ments. The plough was almost unknown among a mode of ploughing practised among the Peruvians, which consisted in the dragging forward of a sharppointed stake by six or eight men, its sharp point, which was in front, being kept down in the ground PLOUGH, PLOUGHING. by the pressure of the foot of another man who directed it. Britain and America, and their colonies, are the only countries in which the plough has been Fig. 8. brought to a state worthy of being considered effective, and even in Britain the most important amendments on it are not two centuries old. England took the lead in improvement by rendering the form more neat and effective, and by attaching wheels to aid in keeping the plough in a proper upright position. In Scotland, for some time after this, the plough was extremely rude and cumbrous, and usually drawn by 8 oxen; but in the middle of the 18th c., some Dutch ploughs were imported, and being found more effective, an impetus was thus given to attempts at improvement. James Small, who may justly be regarded as the real inventor of the Scotch or swing-plough, made great and important changes in the form and efficiency of the coulter, share, and mould-board, producing an implement at once lighter and vastly more efficient. All the swing-ploughs of successive makers are founded upon the basis of Small's plough. Wilkie of Uddingston (Lanarkshire) formed it wholly of iron, and his modification has been universally adopted in the modern ploughs. Among the various improvers of this form of cultivator may be mentioned, besides Wilkie of Uddingston, Gray of the same place, Clarke of Stirling, Cunningham, Barrowman, Ponton, Sellars, &c. In England, swingploughs are occasionally met with, but the wheelplough is the one generally used; like its Scotch neighbour it had many defects, which have been gradually remedied, chiefly by Ransomes of Ipswich (the patentee in 1785 of the cast-iron share), Howard of Bedford, Hornsby of Grantham (Lincolnshire), and Busby of Bedale, the last of whom gained a medal for his mould-boards at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The English and Scotch ploughs differ from each other in many important particulars, especially in the form of the mouldboards and in the adjustment of the coulter, the first being chiefly adapted for shallow, and the latter for deep, ploughing. In the Cotswold district, a plough constructed of wood, and with a wooden mould-board (the Beverstone Plough), is in general use, and is found sufficiently well adapted for the shallow ploughing there practised. For further information concerning the plough and the mode of using it, see Morton's Cyclopædia of Agriculture (1856), Stephens' Book of the Farm, Book of Farm Implements, by Henry Stephens and R. Scott Burn, and other works. Steam-ploughing.-Although it is not yet ten years since cultivation of the land by steam came into successful operation, it is about two centuries and a half since it was foreseen to be possible. So long ago as 1618, David Ramsey and Thomas Wildgosse took out letters-patent for engines and machinery to plough the ground with out the aid of oxen or horses; and nine years afterwards, other ingenious men obtained letterspatent for machines to effect a similar purpose. It is the opinion of Mr Woodcroft of the Patent Office, who compiled the Abridgments of the Specifications Relating to Steam-culture, that steam was the motive power intended to be employed; but as the first patent was taken out nearly 40 years before the Marquis of Worcester described the steam-engine in his Century of Inventions, the grounds for such an opinion do not seem quite satisfactory. In 1769, however, after the steam-engine had been applied to other purposes, there was lodged in the Patent Office a specification for a new machine or engine, to plough, harrow, and do every other branch of husbandry, without the aid of horses. The patentee was Francis Moore; and so confident was he of the merits of his plan, that he sold all his own horses, and persuaded his friends to do the same; because the price of that noble and useful animal will be so affected by the new invention, that its value will not be one-fourth of what it is at present.' Moore, however, was much too sanguine; his method of cultivating the land without the aid of animal power failed, as those of others before him had done. The next invention that it is here necessary to mention was one by Major Pratt, patented in 1810. His plan was to have two engines, one on each headland, drawing, by means of an endless rope, an implement between them. In order to save the labour and loss of time in turning the plough at the ends, he attached two ploughs, back to back, making them work upon a fulcrum in the centre of a frame, so that one could be raised out of the ground when the other was working. This was the first adoption of the balance-principle, now employed in most implements used in steam-cultivation. Major Pratt's apparatus, like those of his predecessors, never came into practical operation. In the interval between 1810 and 1832, when Mr Heathcoat, M.P., a Tiverton lace-merchant, patented the first steam-ploughing machinery that ever wrought successfully in the field, there were many inventions, but these being of little utility, need not be particularised. Mr Heathcoat's machinery was principally intended for draining and breaking up soft or swampy land. It consisted of a locomotive steam-engine, with a broad, endless, flexible floor or railway attached to the wheels, so as to prevent them from sinking in the boggy soil. Opposite to this engine, an auxiliary carriage was placed, and between the two the plough was drawn backwards and forwards by an endless chain or band-engine and carriage moving along as the work proceeded. In 1836, this plough worked with tolerable success in Red Moss in Lancashire, and in 1837 it was tried near Dumfries, under the auspices of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland; but here its performance, though in some degree satisfactory, was not sufficiently so to warrant the judges in awarding to it the prize of £500, which had been offered for the first successful application of steam-power to the cultivation of the soil by the Society. The appar atus was very cumbersome and expensive to work, the engine being 25 horse-power, and the number of men and boys employed in the operation no less than ten. The amount of work done was at the rate of 8 acres per day. Mr Heathcoat abandoned the machine after having spent about £12,000 on it. After Mr Heathcoat, the inventors specially worthy of mention are Alexander M'Rae, who, arranging his motive-power in the same manner as Major Pratt, made the important addition of a Barrel to the plough-frame upon which the slackrope was to be wound up; Mr Hannam of Burcote, who, in 1849, designed an apparatus to be driven PLOUGH, PLOUGHING. by an ordinary portable engine, to be stationed at In 1855, the Messrs Fisken of Stamfordham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, took out a patent for a much more perfect apparatus for cultivating the land by steam than any that had previously appeared. The power was transmitted by a stationary engine to a hempen rope (the Messrs Fisken being anxious to dispense with wire-ropes), which was worked at a high velocity, and, passing round pulleys on two self-moving anchors, turned a drum upon the plough, whose revolution imparted motion to the implement upon which it was fixed. The important features in this system were the self-propelling anchors, the arrangement of the ploughs on the balance-principle, and the mode of steerage. This plough was exhibited at the annual show of the Royal Agricultural Society of England in the year the patent was taken out, and excited great interest, but failed to obtain any award. Three years before this, the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland had thought so hopefully of the idea, that a grant was voted out of its funds to assist the author in maturing his project. Bletchley; and under the direction of Mr Fowler, he got constructed an apparatus, which, with modi fications, he has been working successfully ever since. The inventions since that time need not be enumerated. It may be stated generally that they have included plans for engines travelling over the surface of the ground, drawing ploughs or other cultivating implements along with them; engines working on tramways, and drawing implements after them; engines moving along opposite headlands, and working implements between them by means of wire-ropes, and stationary engines driving implements also by means of wire-ropes. The first two principles have been abandoned-the one on account of the great consumption of fuel, and the large amount of wear and tear occasioned to move the engine over uneven and soft ground; and the other, on account of the expense necessary to lay down rails over a farm. The only two systems in practical operation are what are called the direct and round-about-the former where the pull of the implement is directly to and from the engine; and the latter where the implement is drawn at right angles. These methods are best known as Fowler's and Howard's, though, perhaps, Smith should be credited with the round-about system, but Howard's name is now much more generally given to it. Fowler's system we hope to make intelligible by the aid of cuts. The principal elements are an engine, an anchor, a wire-rope, and a balance-plough. In commencing operations, the engine is placed at the end of one of the headlands of the field, and directly opposite it on the other headland is placed the anchor. Beneath the engine there is a large sheave or drum, five feet in diameter, the groove of which drum is composed of a series of small leaf-like pieces In 1854, Mr Fowler exhibited his patent steam- of chilled cast-iron, each moving independently upon draining apparatus at the Lincoln meeting of the its own axis. The object of these is to prevent the Royal Agricultural Society of England; and from rope from slipping (which it is apt to do in a plain this time may be dated the practical history of groove under great strain), and this they do in a very cultivation of the land by steam; for the idea that ingenious manner, by closing on the rope as soon such an apparatus could be wrought advantageously as it takes the bend-that is, as soon as the rope in other field-operations entered the mind of a presses upon them-and they in the same manner practical farmer, Mr Smith of Woolston, near open and release it immediately on the pressure being removed, or, in other words, as soon as the rope | anchor, as will be seen from the engraving (fig. 10), is resumes the straight on the other side of the sheave. a massive square framework of wood, mounted on six The position and nature of this drum on the engine sharp disc wheels, each about two feet in diameter, will be understood by the accompanying cut. The which cut deep into the ground, and on the lightest PLOUGH, PLOUGHING. land they take such hold as effectually to resist the pull of the rope which is passed round the sheave beneath. The anchor has a self-acting motion the power being communicated from the engine through the medium of the ploughing-rope which enables it to move along the headland, and Fig. 10.-The Anchor. keep opposite to the engine. The plough (fig. 11) | inserted in the soil, and turn up the furrows on the is a framework of iron, balanced upon two large wheels. To each side of this framework there are attached four plough-bodies and coulters, so that four furrows are cut at one 'bout,' and the headland on which the anchor is stationed being reached, the end of the beam that was out of the ground is depressed (the other, of course, being raised), and the four plough-bodies that were out of the ground, and which point in the opposite direction, are way back to the engine. By altering the position of the plough-bodies along the frame-work, a broad or a narrow furrow can be cut at pleasure. In ordinary working, an acre an hour is accomplished. The wire-rope, by which the plough is dragged through the land, passes round the sheaves on the anchor and the engine, the ends are attached to two drums upon the plough; and by a nice mechanical arrangement, the ploughman who rides upon the implement is enabled to wind up, or let | necessary precaution, without which the wear and out slack if necessary, without loss of time. The tear would be alike annoying and expensive-by wire-rope is made in lengths, which are easily disjoined, in order that it may be adjusted to irregularly shaped fields, or rather to fields that are not exact squares or parallelograms; for Fowler's method is not well adapted to such irregularities as prevent the engine and anchor being opposite each The rope is horne off the ground-a very other. a number of pulleys, or 'rope-porters' as they are called, mounted on frames. The outside ones, that is, those farthest from the work, are moved along by the action of the rope; those in front of the plough are removed by boys, and placed behind the implement as it proceeds. The modus operandi will be patent at a glance, from the annexed plan of working (fig. 12). To manage this apparatus three men and two boys are required-namely, a man at the engine, another on the plough, a third at the anchor, and the lads to look after the rope-porters. The water and coals needed for the engine must be brought by other men. The plough-bodies can be removed from the frame and in their place 'digging-breasts' be attached, by means of which the land is thrown up in a some what similar manner to that in which it is turned over by the spade. The price of the ploughing and cultivating apparatus is as follows: 14-hors |