MACHINES FOR TILLAGE.
The Plough, though in use thousands of years ago, is still universally employed, and in many localities, as among the Malaysians and some African tribes, it yet retains its primitive simplicity. In the East it has always been a light and inartificial implement. It was known in Egypt and Syria before the Hebrews became tillers of the soil (Job i.
The technical terms given to the parts of a plough are the body, that part to which all the rest is attached; the sole, the bottom, to the fore part of which is affixed the share, whose point expands into ajin, the hind part of the sole being called the heel; the beam, to which the team is attached and on the end of which is the devis, a sort of rack or elongated staple, into which the draught-chain is hooked; the conifer, a cutting-iron fixed in the 'beam in a vertical position before the point of the share, for the purpose of cutting the furrow-slice from the fast-land; and the mould board, the broad concave part which receives and lays over the furrow slice cut off by the coulter and raised up by the share.
The Egyptian Plough (p1. 56, jig. 1), which doubtless was constructed simply of wood, consisted of a ploughshare, a double handle, and a pole or beam. The beam and the handle were fastened together, as seen in the illustration.
Syrian 4 shows the parts of a light plough used ill Syria; it has a single handle and three different shares, for use in different soils. That metallic ploughshares were used in very ancient times is evident from the prophetic declaration, " They shall beat their swords into ploughshares" (Isa. ii. 4; Mic. iv. 3).
Grecian Greeks in the time of Hesiod (about 850 B. c.) used two kinds of ploughs. One was made of the limb of a tree with the branches so diverging as to form the different parts; the other was con structed of three sticks so fastened together as to form a plough similar to the preceding,. Cavlus's collection of Greek antiquities gives illustrations 2, 3) of wheel-ploughs used in the third century E. c.
Peruvian the advancement in agricultural science made by the ancient Peruvians they " might be supposed to have had some knowledge of the plough, in such general use among the primitive nations of the Eastern continent; but they had neither the iron ploughshare of the Old World nor had they animals for draught, which, indeed, were nowhere found in the New. The instrument which they used was a
Strong sharp-pointed stake traversed by a horizontal piece, TO or 12 inches from the point, on which the ploughman might set his foot and force it into the ground. Six or eight strong men were attached by ropes to the stake and dragged it forcibly along, pulling together and keeping time as they moved by chanting their national songs, in which they were accom panied by the women who followed in their train to break up the sods with their rakes. The mellow soil offered slight resistance, and the laborer, by long practice, acquired a dexterity which enabled him to turn up the ground to the requisite depth with astonishing facility. This sub stitute for the plough was but a clumsy contrivance, yet it is curious as the only specimen of the kind among the American aborigines, and was perhaps not much inferior to the wooden instrument introduced in its stead by the European conquerors" (Prescott).
The Modern Plough (pi. fig. 6), with its mould-board to turn the broken-up soil, was invented in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, and in the early part of the eighteenth century many ploughs were imported from Holland. The one most in use in America during the colonial period and well on into the present century had a wooden mould-board, sometimes covered with sheet iron, while the share was of wrought iron. This was followed by the cast-iron plough, which as first manufactured had a mould-board so rough as to necessitate scouring by protracted ploughing in a gravelly field before it could he used in adhesive soil. An important advance was made by using steel for the mould-board and by applying the chilling process to its entire surface, which by this means was made so smooth as to prevent the adhering of the soil. The important requisites of the modern plough now in general use arc light ness of draught and steadiness of run, while it must produce a furrow of uniform depth and must properly pulverize the soil. The mould-board should be so constructed as to be adapted to the particular variety of soil in which it is to be used, and for this purpose admits of an almost endless variety of forms.