| Show wonderful evolution of the kontely plow 0 s 2 progress of the plow 1 flings plow 70 A D 2 the syrian plow known as jobs plow 3 daniel websters plow 4 jethroe woods plow 1819 1919 5 the egyptian plow no agricultural implement has improved more through a long series of inventions down through the ages than lias has the plow declares clarence A obrien OHr len washington patent attorney while many farm implements were originally conceived in a somewhat advanced stage the plow started from sc scratch rate it literally the original plow according to mr obrien was a forked stick or limb of a freewith tree treel with a projecting point with ehla implement the ground was broken by dragging the fork or projecting point of the stick through the ground jording a continuous furrow thus alius ihu thu fork of the stick was thoi the share while the main part of the stick was the beam one of the first improvements as shown inflows in plows of this kind pictured on syrian monuments was wag it brace be tween the share and tile the beam to hold the tree limbs more firmly together while the earlier model was operated by one man it Is apparent that two or more men were ivere required to handle the syrian plow first home of the ahe plow upon a very old monument af of ancient egypt the country which seems to have been the first howe home of the pow plow mr obrian len says a picture shows a a num number bekof of men dragging a plow by behns means of a rope another egyptian monument nt of a later date shows iio w s a plowing scene with animals dr drawing diving the plow the egyptian plow shows an an improvement over tile the crooked stick of the syrians in that it had a broader share thus making a wider furrow that break more ground it also had find two handles instead of one and was apparently a fairly effective implement vergil in ills georgics Georgl cs a writing which formed part of a back to the land movement nt in the first century B C showed little improvement over the egyptian plow pliny a toman roman writer of the first century A D refers toa to a plow that had wheels to regulate the depth it also had a coulter or knife eted ked in front of the share to make the first cut of the soil sod mr air obrien intimates however that such a plow wils was not in general use in time plow with wheels A thousand years later however a 8 plow with wheels and coulter was doubtless in common use it had evidently spread up into england since extant drawings show anglo angin sn oa of the eleventh century using plows of tills this description one of these shows a plow with two wheels pul pulled ed by four oxen five hundred years later nt at the time columbus dise discovered america the plow showed little further improvement it t was still the clumsy wooden contraption of earlier ages the next improvement of record mr air obrien says Is found in an old bools book published in a do double tible plow that cut two fur furrowh at one alnio in hi the early seventeen hundreds dutch plow makers began to put moldboards mold hoards boards on their plows to lift up and turn over the he slice of sod cut by the share prior to that time the plow simply ran through the ground and stirred it up this improvement was quickly copied by other nations with the moldboard later eased cased with plates plate of iron it was not until about aboul 1800 that tile the share was made of iron with a hardened steel point the coulter was naso of iron with a straight stick for the bearc first moldboard Plow in tin the united states in the latter part of vie eighteenth century de aided improvements began to appear in plows while traveling in france thomas jefferson noted in his diary tile the awkward figure of then their moldboard leads one to consider what should be its form by 1703 jefferson efferson had determined what the proper form of the moldboard should he be and hail in use on his large estate in virginia several plows with moldboards mold hoards boards of small resistance i while subsequent improvements have been made jefferson has the distinction of having in vented dented the first moldboard constructed according to scientific and mathematical cal principles plow of cast iron charles newbold a farmer near burlington N J in 1700 1706 made a plow of cast iron with the point share and moldboard all cast in one piece the nw new jersey farmers however did not accept this innovation in 1810 1811 jethro wood of scipio took out a patent for a plow made of cast iron and bombin ing the best features of th those ose designed by jefferson arid and by newbold ills his plow had the point share and mold board fastened together so that worn parts could be replaced by 1825 it had practically replaced tile the half wood en ell half iron plows of earlier days while the united states patent office lists many later Improve improvements mOnts in the main the best plows today closely resemble in design that ahat patented by jethro kopd in 1819 1 the gang plow appeared about the middle of the nineteenth century in norderto take care of the needs odthe of the farmer in the vast prairie and while originally drawn by horses they were later drawn by bv steam john fowler about 1805 introduced steam plowing in england drawing two sets of plows and today it Is not uncommon to find trac tractor for drawing a number of plows plow turning a breadth of many feet at one |
