Plowshare

“ Up and down a wide field the ox team is going. [*] The plow is an extremely primitive affair—mainly of wood, although over the sharpened point which forms the plowshare a plate of iron has been fitted. Such a plow requires very skilful handling to cut a good furrow, and the driver of the team has no sinecure.
[*] Mules were sometimes used for drawing the plow, but horses, it would seem, never.
Women pounding Meal
In a field near by, the hinds are reaping a crop of wheat which was late in ripening. ”

“ The sulky plow is easier for the horses than the common plow; it makes furrows of different depths; and it has a seat for the farmer. Sometimes several plowshares are placed side by side and drawn by a large number of horses. This is called a gang plow. Steam and wind and water and even electricity are coming into use to furnish power for plows, in place of the animal power of horses.
"Well, Uncle Ben," said George one evening, "now I understand something about plowing and tillage. The next thing a farmer does in the spring is to plant his potatoes and corn, is it not?" ”

“ The God who made iron knew men would make swords of it—just as He also knew they would make plowshares. Making war is sometimes the only way to make peace. If the cause is a just one the Lord calls himself the God of battles. ”

“ To attempt to use this kind in wet, sticky land, such as was on my claim, would find the soil adhering to the plow share, causing it to drag, gather roots and grass, until it is impossible to keep the plow in the ground. When it is dry, this kind of plow can be used with success in the gummy land; but it was not dry when I invaded my homestead soil with my big horse, Jenny and Jack, that first day of May, but very wet indeed.
To make matters worse, Doc, the big horse, believed in "speeding." ”

“ They can't be. How can they rave over my one decoration when that young nigger John has two, and deserved them, and when the butcher and baker and candlestick-maker are my ranking officers? War used to be a gentleman's game. But it isn't any more."
"We've got to carve our own pedestals," said the Major. "We are gods of yesterday. The world won't stop to praise us. We did our duty, and we would do it again. But our laurel wreaths are doffed. Our swords are beaten into plowshares. Peace is upon us. If we want pedestals, we've got to carve them."
Truxton argued that it wasn't quite fair. ”

“ Nor is cost the only discouragement. There is not half so much nor so thorough plowing among us, especially in the Fall; as there should be. The soil is, for a good part of the time, too dry or too wet; the weather is inclement, or the ground is frozen: so the plow must stand still. At length, the signs are auspicious; the ground is in just the right condition; and we would gladly plow ten, twenty, fifty acres during the brief period wherein it remains so; but this is impossible. Others want to improve the opportunity as well as we; extra teams are rarely to be had at any price ”

“ It is not alone sufficient to plow and to plow deeply; it is also necessary that the plowing be done at the right time. In the very great majority of cases over the whole dry-farm territory, plowing should be done in the fall. There are three reasons for this: First, after the crop is harvested, the soil should be stirred immediately, so that it can be exposed to the full action of the weathering agencies, whether the winters be open or closed. If for any reason plowing cannot be done early it is often advantageous to follow the harvester with a disk and to plow later when convenient. ”

“ It may [Pg 351] be profitably done for two months after the grass gets a good start in the spring.
How much is it best to plow land? Once double-plowed, or thoroughly subsoiled, and well turned over, is better than more. Land once plowed so as to disintegrate the whole to the depth of the furrow, will produce more, and require less care, than the same would do if cross-plowed once or twice. Excessive plowing is a positive injury. All land should be broken up once in three or four years, and not kept longer than that under the plow at one time. ”

“ The construction of plows has since been taken up by a multitude of inventors, the most valuable of improvements, probably, coming through the use of chilled iron, and the most promising from the application of steam-power to plowing. The increase in the working power of the farmer, from American improvements in plows, may be estimated from the fact that two million plowmen, with as many teams, would need to work every day in the year with the primitive plow to prepare the soil annually under cultivation in this country. ”

“ Hal and Mab watched the man plowing. He held the two curved handles of the plow, and it was the sharp steel "share" of this that they had seen shining in the sun as it cut through the brown soil. A plow cuts through the soil as the horses pull it after them, and it is so shaped that the upper part of the earth is turned over, bringing up to the top, where the sun can shine on it, the underneath part. The undersoil is richer and better for seeds to start growing in than the upper part, where the rain may wash away the plant-food things that are needed to make a good garden. ”

“ This is one of the most important matters in soil-culture. When, how, and how much, shall we plow? are the three questions involving the whole. When should plowing be done? As it respects wet or dry, plow sandy or gravelly land whenever you are ready. It will neither be hard when dry, nor injured by being plowed when very wet. Good loams may be plowed at all times except when excessively wet. Clays can only be worked profitably when neither excessively wet or dry. Plowing land in a warm rain is almost equal to a coat of manure. ”

“ The great gang plow drawn by steam marked the last step in the development of the plow. The forked stick drawn by human hands and making its feeble scratch on the ground had grown until it had become a mighty machine drawn across the field by an unseen force and leaving in its wake a broad belt of deeply-plowed and well-broken soil. ”

“ On stiff lands, and especially for root crops, it will pay if possible to have the sub-soil plow follow the regular plow. This is, of course, for thoroughly rotted and fined manure; if coarse, it had better be put under at one plowing, making the best of a handicap. If you have arranged to have your garden plowed "by the job," be on hand to see that no shirking is done, by taking furrows wider than the plow can turn completely; it is possible to "cut and cover" so that the surface of a piece will look well enough, when in reality it is little better than half plowed. ”

“ Laying Out Squares or Rectangles with the Plow. If a good plowman can be secured, very satisfactory work can be done with the plow. In some cases a man can be found who needs nothing in the way of a guide, except two or three stakes. But with a sufficient number of stakes and [Pg 106] a marker attached to the plow, good results can be secured by almost any plowman.
Furrows should be run both lengthwise and crosswise of the field, their intersections marking the place where the trees are to stand. At each one set a stake. ”

“ In Switzerland the farmer's plow is a wide shovel, which scrapes up and turns over the thin earthy skin of his native rock—and there the man of the plow is a hero. Now here, by our St. Nicholas road, was a grave, and it had a tragic story. A plowman was skinning his farm one morning,—not the steepest part of it, but still a steep part—that is, he was not skinning the front of his farm, but the roof of it, near the eaves,—when he absent-mindedly let go of the plow-handles to moisten his hands, in the usual way: he lost his balance and fell out of his farm backwards ”

“ Oftentimes a disk or cutaway harrow may replace the plow. Its action is the same as that of the plow, loosening and turning the soil over. When land has had a good plowing within the year, and has not become compact, stirring to a depth of four inches may give a better seed-bed for some crops than could be made by use of a plow. This is true of land that has produced a cultivated crop and is being prepared for a fall-seeding. The gain in time of preparing ground for oats in the spring makes the use of the disk or cutaway harrow profitable on mellow corn-stubble land. ”

“ My own job was to rake and burn the brush which my father mowed with a heavy scythe.—Later we dug postholes and built fences but each day was spent on the new land.
Around us, on the swells, gray gophers whistled, and the nesting plover quaveringly called. Blackbirds clucked in the furrow and squat badgers watched with jealous eye the plow's inexorable progress toward their dens. The weather was perfect June. Fleecy clouds sailed like snowy galleons from west to east, the wind [Pg 105] was strong but kind, and we worked in a glow of satisfied ownership. ”

“ The ordinary modern plow used by the English farmer improves upon this rather in details of construction and material than in essential principle, though a new start in invention is taken by the self-acting plow, which no longer needs the plowman to follow at the plow-tail, and by the steam-plow, which substitutes engine-traction.
The plow, drawn by oxen or horses, and provided with wheels, has taken on itself the accessories of a wheel-carriage. But, when the plow is traced back to its earliest form of a hoe dragged by men, its nature has little in common with that of the vehicle. ”

“ There is difference of opinion everywhere as to whether the first plowing should be toward or away from the trees. In places where the soil is pretty heavy and the rainfall is apt to be quite large, plowing toward the trees and opening a dead furrow near the center seems to promote rapid distribution of surplus water. If the rainfall is less and arrangements for deep penetration are more necessary, the plowing can well be away from the trees, so as to direct the water toward the row. ”

“ If for any reason the farmer feels that he must practice spring plowing, he should do it as early as possible in the spring. Of course, it is inadvisable to plow the soil when it is so wet as to injure its tilth seriously, but as soon as that danger period has passed, the plow should be placed in the ground. The moisture in the soil will thereby be conserved, and whatever water may fall during the spring months will be conserved also. This is of especial importance in the Great Plains region and in any district where the precipitation comes in the spring and winter months. ”

“ One advantage in riding plows in addition to the relief of such a load is less packing of the furrow bottom. On certain soils when the moisture is just sufficient to make the subsoil sticky, a certain portion of the furrow bottom is cemented by plow pressure so that it becomes impervious to the passage of moisture either up or down. The track of a plow wheel is less injurious. ”

“ In the last quarter century the improvement on these earlier farm machines has been remarkable and elaborate. One of the most wonderful continued stories of human ingenuity is the evolution of the plow, from the historic crooked stick that merely tickled the surface of the ground (and is still used in many countries) to the steam gang-plow which tears up the earth at an astonishing pace, and thoroughly prepares the soil meanwhile. When with a gang-plow and five horses, it became possible for a man to plow five acres a day, it was supposed the acme of progress was attained. ”

“ The walking plow should not have a tendency to run either in or out, neither too deep nor too shallow. For the proper adjustment as to width and depth of furrow, the plow should follow the line of draft in strict obedience to the pull so that it [139] will keep to the furrow on level ground a distance of several feet without guidance from the handles. In making the adjustment it is first necessary to see that the plow itself is in good working order. All cutting edges such as share, coulter or jointer must be reasonably sharp and the land slip in condition as the makers intended. ”

“ The plow frame is hauled from one side of the field to the other, between the engine and the movable anchor, by reversing the action of the windlass. It is adapted to turning from two to eight furrows at once, according to the power of the engine and toughness of the soil. The amount of ground plowed by such a machine varies from three to eight acres a day for a three-furrow gang, according to depth of furrow from twelve inches to four inches. ”

“ It is a question even to-day, in the minds of a great many students, whether the modern plow should not be replaced by some machine even more suitable for the proper turning and stirring of the soil. The moldboard plow is, everything considered, the most satisfactory plow for dry-farm purposes. A plow with a moldboard possessing a short abrupt curvature is generally held to be the most valuable for dry-farm purposes, since it pulverizes the soil most thoroughly, and in dry-farming it is not so important to turn the soil over as to crumble and loosen it thoroughly. ”

“ In the matter of plowing, the plowman usually went about breaking up the land for his neighbor, and in some towns a bounty was paid to anyone who would buy a plow and keep it in repair so that the neighborhood plowing could be done. ”

“ A turning plow is out of place in a cotton field unless the soil is devoid of vegetable matter and runs together after heavy rains or unless it rains for two or three weeks and it becomes necessary to plow under the grass. If the soil packs after heavy rains, it may be advisable to use the turning plow as a necessary evil, especially, when the cotton is young. If it should be necessary to use it to loosen the soil or to clean out the crop, by all means avoid deep cultivation late in the season. ”

“ Clogging was such a factor in prairie plowing that farmers in these regions carried a wooden paddle solely for cleaning off the moldboard, a task which had to be repeated so frequently that it seriously interfered with plowing efficiency. It seems probable that by the 1830's blacksmiths in the prairie country were beginning to solve the problem of continuous cultivation of sticky prairie soil by nailing strips of saw steel to the face of wooden moldboard of the traditional plows. Figure 1 is a photograph of an 18th century New England plow in the collection of the U. S. National Museum. ”