’Tis strange that no Author should have written fully of the Fabric of Ploughs! Men of the greatest Learning have spent their Time in contriving Instruments to measure the immense Distance of the Stars, and in finding out the Dimensions, and even Weight, of the Planets: They think it more eligible to study the Art of plowing the Sea with Ships, than of tilling the Land with Ploughs; they bestow the utmost of their Skill, learnedly, to pervert the natural Use of all the Elements for Destruction of their own Species, by the bloody Art of War. Some waste their whole Lives in studying how to arm Death with new Engines of Horror, and inventing an infinite Variety of Slaughter; but think it beneath Men of Learning (who only are capable of doing it) to employ their learned Labours in the Invention of new (or even improving the old) Instruments for increasing of Bread.
The easiest Method of perpetuating the Use of the many coulter’d Ploughs, and other newly-invented Instruments of Husbandry, is by Models, i. e. the Things themselves in little; and these may be all portable even in a Man’s Pocket: Every Part must be fully described, with the true Dimensions, and the mathematical Reasons, on which their Contrivance is founded. Directions also for using them must be given at the same time that their Manner of making is described. In some, the very Horses which draw must be represented, to shew the manner of fixing the Horses, and the Traces: Cautions against all the Errors that may happen by the want of Experience in the Makers or Users, must be given.
When this is done, and the Rules put into a Method, the new Hoeing-Husbandry, in all its Branches, will be much more easy and certain than the old; because there are no mathematical Rules extant in any Method; and a Man may practise the old random Husbandry all his Life, without attaining so much Certainty in Agriculture as may be learned in a few Hours from such a Treatise.
The Rules, indeed, require much Labour, Study, and Experience, to compose them; but when finish’d, will be most easy to practise: Like the Rules for measuring Timber; their Use is, at first Sight, easy to every Carpenter, and to most Artificers who work in Wood; but no illiterate Person is able to compose those Rules, or to measure Timber without them.
CHAP. XIX.
The Description of a Four-coulter’d Plough.
To describe all Parts of a Plough geometrically, would require more Time and Learning than I am Master of: Therefore leaving that to be done by somebody else, who is better qualified for it, I shall at present attempt little more than what relates to the Three added Coulters.
In [Plate I. Fig. I.] is the Portrait of a common Two-wheel’d Plough used in Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, and Wiltshire, and in most other Countries of South-Britain; and is generally esteemed the best Plough for all Sorts of Land, except such miry Clays that stick to the Wheels, and clog them up, so as they cannot turn round.
But they have, in some Places, a Contrivance to prevent this Inconvenience; which is done by winding Thumb-ropes of Straw about the Iron Circles of the Wheels, and about the Spokes. The Wheels pressing against the Ground, the Thumb-ropes are distended on each Side: which Motion throws off the Dirt, and prevents its sticking to the Wheels, which it would otherwise do.
’Tis commonly divided into Two Parts; viz. the Plough-head, and the Plough-tail.