The Plough-Wright's Assistant; Or, a Practical Treatise on Various Implements Employed in Agriculture. Illustrated by Sixteen Engravings

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1808 edition. Excerpt: ... the same plough. A B represent the larger handle; C D the lesser one, fixed at D to the head; P P are two rods that connect the handles; E K D L is the mouldboard of the left-hand plough, and M N L O the mouldboard of the right-hand plough. The mouldboards KDL and N L O are kept in any required extension, by means of screw-bolts and nuts; so that the furrows O L and Is B can be made broad or narrow at pleasure. Harrows Harrows in General. Implements of this description are useful and necessary in the practice of husbandry, both for covering the seed, and preparing the land for its reception; though, as yet, they have, in their forms, received little improvement. The chief circumstances by which they have been rendered more convenient, are, the direction of the bulls, or frame in which the tines or teeth are fixed, and in the way of attaching the horses. It must appear to every one in the least acquainted with harrowing, that no one harrow, of whatever form, can be suitable to every soil, or state of the land; but that these implements ought to be adapted to the particular purposes intended to be accomplished. In the lighter grounds, light harrows having short teeth may answer; but, in strong soils, or such as have been newly broken up from old leas, or from a state of nature, a harrow which possesses much greater weight and strength, furnished with long and strong teeth, is absolutely necessary: and where the land abounds in roots and weeds, it may be requisite, to prevent the harrow's being easily choked, not to set the bulls too thick with teeth; for, when a harrow has too many teeth, it is not only soon choked up, but prevented from operating in a proper manner, being confined too much to the surface, by which the soil is imperfectly...