The Rural Voice, 1988-09, Page 18In Praise of the Plow
TURNING THE OLD SOD
"In a country where the quality of the
soil is so various, and the plowmen
are so different in respect to intelli-
gence and experience, the tillage —
which is always affected by these
circumstances — must necessarily be
of various degrees of excellence; and
let the plowman be ever so expert, if
the land be infected with such
obstructions as bushes or bogs or
large stones, it is impossible that the
work can be well performed."
Back in 1799, this is what James
Robertson, in his General View of the
Agriculture in the County of Perth
(Scotland) had to say about the art of
plowing.
But in this Perth, our Perth — far
removed from that heather and haggis
Spring plowing, 1906, photo by R. R. Sallows
Perth — the plowman's problems also
included bush, bog, and boulder.
The 50 -year period from 1829 to
1879 witnessed extraordinary events
around Stratford, the gateway to the
one -million -acre Huron Tract. Like a
giant patchwork quilt, the surveyor's
prooflines slowly stitched the land-
scape into saleable rectangles. Ingeni-
ous developments elsewhere led to the
production of hardened -steel plows
which would eventually help turn this
forest into farms.
Back in 1740, the first cast-iron
plows had appeared in Scotland.
They revolutionized the crude wooden
moldboard and tree -root plows that
had scratched the earth for millenia.
The first cast-iron plow in North
America bears the patent date of June
17, 1797. Its originator, Charles
Newbold, lamented the years and
money devoted to the enterprise. As
Facts For Farmers (1868) reports,
"Great as these improvements were
upon the old wooden plows, there was
great prejudice against them — some
even affirming that cast-iron poisoned
the ground and prevented the growth
of crops. After spending $30,000 in a
vain effort to get his plows in general
use, he gave up the business in
despair, leaving the American farmers
wedded to their idols, the old wooden
plows."
But the wheels of progress did not
get stuck in a furrow because of
Newbold's bad experience. During
16 PERTH COUNTY SPECIAL EDITION