Page:Pearl of Asia (Child JT, 1892).pdf/341

312 runner and mould board is a natural crotch being one and the same stick, the shorter branch of the crotch serving for the mould board, and the longer branch for the runner. The latter is about iwo feet long by 10 inches round. It comes to a small point at its nose fitted for the socket of the ploughshare. The latter, but a little larger than a large human hand, is made of cast-iron the shape of half of a large ovate leaf cut square off in the middle. Its upper plane is flat, inclining a very little to the right hand when in its placo. It bulges out on the under side to form a flattened socket to receive the nose of the runner. It is never fastened in its place excepting by a close fit, their owners wishing to have them so that they may be knocked off at night and carried home to secure them from thieves.

The mould board, if such it can be called, is only of the same width of the runner, but made thinner, curving backward and upward about 12 inches. It has a slight inclination to the right hand to favor the turning of the clods to that side rather than the other. Being a natural branch of the runner it needs nothing to strengthen it. The hinder end of the beam curves down and is framed into the back end of the runner. The handle of the plough (for there are never two) is a natural crook forming a large segment of a circle four feet long, passes through the beam just behind the mould board, and is framed in the runner near the acute angle made by the two.

Now such is all there is of a Siamese plough, the wood part costing only 75 cents, and the iron 16 cents. It cuts a furrow 2 inches deep and from 5 to 6 inches wide. We should judge that only about half of the