Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 3, 1802).djvu/427

Rh Communications to the Board of Agriculture:



This machine, we understand, was originally invented by Mr., but has lately been materially improved by the patriotic Lord. The construction of the beam is nearly the same as that of the Beverstone Plough; which his Lordship (in his Address to the Board, in 1798) acknowledges to have adopted, from a consciousness of his inability to substitute another more adapted to the purpose. The chief and most important improvement relates to the mould-board, one end of which was formerly cut off, and the deficiency supplied by driving in wedges, to the consequent injury of the mould-plate. As this expedient, however, was attended with much trouble, it was generally omitted; and, consequently, the land imperfectly tilled. With a view to remedy such inconvenience, Lord S. proposes (after the mould-board is formed, and the plate is fitted in the usual manner) to cut off the parts marked a a, in the delineation before communicated, and to connect them again with the fixed part of the board, by means of flat hinges, or of thin, flexible plates of hard-hammered iron; so that those parts may be easily set to have different inclinations with such fixed part, by the aid of two screws that pass from the inside through the lower parts of the handle ot the plough, opposite to the backs of the moveable pieces a, a. The screws, he observes, may be so regulated as to keep such pieces at any degree of inclination that may be required, according to the nature of the land intended to be broken up.

The Two-furrow Plough is best adapted to light, and level soils, particularly for stirring ley-grounds; and, as these cannot be laid too flat, or seed-earths be turned too