| Show yankee blacksmith won F fame a inc as the tather father of the steel plow although hough it may be true as the author of Plow mans rally folly declares that today the moldboard plow is the villain of tile the worlds agricultural drama it was not so true a century ago when the pioneers of the middle west found in its broad expanse of open prairie a sod tough with the boughn toughness ess of thousands of interlaced roots of the tall rank growing grass that was very different from the loose gravelly soil they had known back east it was rich soil there was wag no doubt about that but there was no drainage and the heavy beavy loam clung to the iron shod moldboard of the plow so the pioneer plowman always had to carry a wooden paddle with him then when his straining oxen pull forward another another step hed have to jerk the plow out cut of the ground and clean it oft off with his paddle but it was only a few minutes until the sticky muck had rolled up on the plowshare like balled snow on a mans boo and the cleaning process would have to be repeated all over again under such conditions it looked as though these prairie lands rich as they were could never be farmed s satisfactorily a then th en in 1 n 1837 IS 37 a yankee blacksmith changed all that he gave them a plow that would scour itself ills his name was john deere and he was the father of the steel plow the man that conquered thi th prairie sod |
