Show Yankee Blacksmith W Won Fame as the tIle Father of the tIle Steel Plow u L L h Although it H 11 may be oe De true irue as me the theauthor author of Folly declares declares declares de de- clares that today the moldboard plow is the villain of the worlds world's agricultural drama it was not so true a century ago when the pio pio- pioneers pioneers pioneers of the Middle West found in its broad expanse of open prairie a sod tough with the toughness of thousands of interlaced roots of the tall rank-growing rank grass that was very different from the loose gravelly gravel gravel- ly soil they had known back East it was rich sou there soil there was no doubt about that that but but there was no drainage drainage drain drain- age and the heavy loam clung to the shod iron-shod moldboard of the plow So the pioneer plowman always had to carry a wooden paddle with him Then when his straining oxen oxon couldn't pull forward another step hed he'd have to jerk the plow out of the ground and clean it off with his paddle But it was only a few minutes minutes minutes min min- utes until the sticky muck had rolled up on the plowshare like balled snow I on a mans man's and the cleaning cleaning clean clean- ing process would h have ve to be repeated repeat repeat- ed all over again Under such conditions it looked as though these prairie lands rich as they were could never be farmed satisfactorily Then in 1837 a Yankee blacksmith changed all that He gave them a plow that would scour itself His name was John Deere and he was the Father of the Steel Plow the man that conquered conquered con the prairie sod |