Show Yankee Blacksmith Although It may be true as theauthor the theauthor b I I author of Plowman s Folly de dares that today the moldboard plow IS the villain of the world s agricultural drama It was not so true a century ago when the pioneers pio pioneers of the Middle West found in its broad expanse of open prairie a sod tough w th the toughness of thousands of interlaced roots of the tall rank growing grass that was very d from the loose gravel ly gravelly soil soli they had known back East Won Fame as the el of the Steel Plow h It hn L was rich there soil was no doubt about that but there was no dram drain drainage age and the heavy loam clung to the iron shod moldboard of the plow So the pioneer plo always had bad to carry a wooden paddle with him Then when hIs straining oxen oen stephe couldn t pull pulI forward another step he d have to jel jerk k the plo v out of the ground and clean t oil off with his paddle But it was o 0 ly Iy a few mm utes until the at eky muck had rolled roIled I up on the plowshare I 1 ke balled snow on a man s u and the clean cleaning cleaning ing process would haw ha hae e a to be repeat repeated repeated ed all over again Under such conditions It looked as though these prairie lands rich as they were could never be farmed sat sal Then In 1837 a Yankee blacksmith changed all that He gave them a plo v that would scour itself H Hs s name was John Deere and he was the rather of the Steel Ploy ti t e man that con conquered I the prairie sod |