Jethro Wood, Inventor of the Modern Plow.: A Brief Account of His Life, Services, and Trials; Together with Facts Subsequent to his Death, and Incident to His Great InventionGilbert, Frank
History
Jethro Wood, Inventor of the Modern Plow.: A Brief Account of His Life, Services, and Trials; Together with Facts Subsequent to his Death, and Incident to His Great Invention
Gilbert, Frank
Plows; Wood, Jethro, 1774-1834
"Besides these properties and proportions of his mould-board, the said
Jethro Wood now explains other properties which it possesses, and by
which it may be and is distinguished from every other invented thing.
The peculiar curve has been compared to that of the screw auger; and
it has been likened to the prow of a ship. Neither of these
similitudes conveys the fair and proper notion of the invention.
"The mould-board, which the said Jethro Wood claims as his own, and
which is the result of profound reflection and of numberless
experiments, is a sort of plano-curvilinear surface, as herein-before
stated, having the following bearings and relations: A right line,
drawn by a chalked string or cord, or by a straight rule, diagonally
or obliquely upwards and backwards from a point two inches and a half
inch above the tip or extremity of the mould-board to the angle where
the third and fourth sides of the mould-board join, touches the
surface the whole distance, in an even and uniform application, and
leaves no sinking, depression, hole, cavity, rising, lump, or
protuberance, in any part of the distance. So, at a distance half way
between the diagonal line just described, and the angle between the
first and second sides, a line drawn parallel to the diagonal line
already mentioned will receive the chalked string or cord, or the
straight rule, as on an uniform and even surface without the smallest
bend, sinuosity, or bunch, whereby earth might adhere to the
mould-board, and impede the motion and progress of the Plough, under,
through and along the soil.
"In like manner, if a point be taken one inch behind the angle
connecting the second and third sides, and a perpendicular be raised
upon it, that perpendicular will coincide with the vertical portion of
the mould-board in that place; or, in other words, if a plumb line be
let fall so as to reach a point one inch behind the last mentioned
angle, then such a plumb line will hang parallel with the mould-board
the whole way; the line of the mould-board there, neither projecting
nor receding but being both a right line and a perpendicular line.
"Moreover, if a right line be drawn from a point on the just described
perpendicular, an inch, or thereabouts, above the upper margin of the
fourth side, and from the point to which the said perpendicular, if
continued, would reach; if, the said Jethro Wood repeats, a right line
be drawn downward and forward, not exactly parallel to the diagonal
herein already described, but so diverging from the same that it is
one inch more distant or further apart, at its termination on the
fifth side of the mould-board, than at its origin or place of
beginning; such line, so beginning, continued, and ended, is a right
line parallel to the mould-board along its whole course and direction,
and the space over which it passes has no inequality, hill, or hollow
thereabout.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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