In clay soils these ploughs did not work well, as the more tenacious soil stuck to the iron moldboard instead of curling gracefully away. In 1833, John Lane, a Chicago blacksmith, faced a wooden moldboard with an old steel saw. It worked like magic, and other blacksmiths followed suit to such an extent that the demand for old saws became brisk. Then came John Deere, a native of Vermont, who settled first in Grand Detour, and then in Moline, Illinois. Deere made wooden ploughs faced with steel, like other blacksmiths, but was not satisfied with them and studied and experimented to find the best curves and angles for a plough to be used in the soils around him. His ploughs were much in demand, and his need for steel led him to have larger and larger quantities produced for him, and the establishment which still bears his name grew to large proportions. Another skilled blacksmith, William Parlin, at Canton, Illinois, began making ploughs about 1842, which he loaded upon a wagon and peddled through the country. Later his establishment grew large. Another John Lane, a son of the first, patented in 1868 a "soft-center" steel plough. The hard but brittle surface was backed by softer and more tenacious metal, to reduce the breakage. The same year James Oliver, a Scotch immigrant who had settled at South Bend, Indiana, received a patent for the "chilled plough." By an ingenious method the wearing surfaces of the casting were cooled more quickly than the back. The surfaces which came in contact with the soil had a hard, glassy surface, while the body of the plough was of tough iron. From small beginnings Oliver's establishment grew great, and the Oliver Chilled Plow Works at South Bend is today one of the largest and most favorably known privately owned industries in the United States. From the single plough it was only a step to two or more ploughs fastened together, doing more work with approximately the same man power. The sulky plough, on which the ploughman rode, made his work easier, and gave him great control. Such ploughs were certainly in use as early as 1844, perhaps earlier. The next step forward was to substitute for horses a traction engine. Today one may see on thousands of farms a tractor pulling six, eight, ten, or more ploughs, doing the work better than it could be done by an individual ploughman. On the "Bonanza" farms of the West a fifty horsepower engine draws sixteen ploughs, followed by harrows and a grain drill, and performs the three operations of ploughing, harrowing, and planting at the same time and covers fifty acres or more in a day. The basic ideas in drills for small grains were successfully developed in Great Britain, and many British drills were sold in the United States before one was manufactured here. American manufacture of these drills began about 1840. Planters for corn came somewhat later. Machines to plant wheat successfully were unsuited to corn, which must be planted less profusely than wheat.