Below is the opening section of chapter 3 (the first three pages of 30)
The plough and ploughing
The plough is a difficult implement to master, whether horse- or tractor-drawn. It is a highly skilled task: many people putting their hand to the plough for the first time have discovered this and experienced the frustration of failing to turn the perfect furrow. To be a good ploughman is a skill in its own right; to plough with a swing plough and a pair of horses requires the utmost skill. It may still be seen at ploughing matches today where they have their own classes. The most modern equipment, the multifurrow reversible plough, requires the close attention of a skilled ploughman to set the plough.
As a small boy brought up on a farm, the author often walked behind the horses and the big plough watching the soil being turned over by the mouldboard while his father was ploughing. He was fascinated by the furrow slice rising up the mouldboard, being turned and crumbled, then laid over inverted beside the previous furrow. Whatever had been on the top, weeds, grass, or manure, now lay buried under the clean, fresh soil. A field of freshly turned furrows, each one exactly like its neighbour, is a sight he would gaze upon and enjoy especially at the end of the day when the field was finished. Years later, as a young engineer with Ransomes, the famous plough makers of Ipswich, the author worked in the field developing new ploughs, and later with customers all over the country and parts of Europe, setting their new ploughs on their farms, and it still gave him the same pleasure. He had always taken the plough for granted and never given a thought about its origin. But while working on this history the question arose: what exactly was the origin of the plough?
The tillage implement has been man's most basic traction tool for several thousand years. It continues to be used at the present time and will well into the future. How did it become the implement we know today and when did it first come into use?
The history of the plough requires a wide-ranging examination of the many ages of man in Britain and Western Europe and the Middle East. We shall see how Jersey was affected by it. The modern plough in Jersey results from development in Western Europe, Britain, and Jersey over thousands of years. We have a fine collection of stone tools in La Societé Jersiaise Museum at La Hougue Bie, for which we must be thankful. There are no other ancient agricultural artefacts in the Island so we make the huge leap of several thousand years to the last two or three centuries, filling that enormous gap by looking at developments on both sides of the Channel.
Throughout the history of agriculture since the beginning of the ard, two craftsmen stand out as major contributors to the production of farm tools, implements, and machinery. First the carpenter/joiner, followed by the blacksmith with the advent of the Iron Age. As time has gone on we have to thank the blacksmith for the major contribution to the advancement of farm machinery. From small beginnings in a blacksmith's forge in the country districts of the British Isles and later the USA, many small businesses became the modern-day international companies, world leaders in the production of farm machinery. Woodwork and ironwork continued to be used together until the middle of the twentieth century, from the humble spade to the wooden- frame threshing machine with an iron drum and concave. In Jersey the wooden plough gave way to iron towards the end of the nineteenth century, all made by Jersey craftsmen.
Before going any further a few words of explanation to help the reader not familiar with ploughs and ploughing. The mouldboard plough is an implement which turns the soil almost upside down, furrow by furrow, burying all that is lying or growing on the top, such as the trash residue of the previous crop, stubble, old grass, farmyard manure and vraic (seaweed) which has been spread on the land. The mouldboard plough leaves no soil unturned between furrows, whether it is a single-furrow plough or a multifurrow plough. It is the body of the plough that does the work. The body is composed of a share at the front that makes the horizontal cut at the furrow bottom. The share has a point and a wing, the width of which will vary depending on the width of furrow and the type of plough. Above the share on most ploughs is the coulter. Behind the share and coulter is the mouldboard, attached behind the share. The mouldboard is curved with a twist, or helix, to turn, twist, and mould the furrow slice over almost on its back to lean against its neighbour, the previous furrow slice. Also behind the share but on the side opposite to the mould- board is a long vertical plate known as the landside, which absorbs the side pressure created as the share and its angled wing and the mouldboard are pulled through the soil. At the back of the landside is a heel that rests on the furrow bottom and helps with setting and maintaining the depth of work. The three components, the share, the mouldboard, and the landside, are held in place by an iron casting called a frog; on some ploughs it is a steel fabrication. The frog is almost hidden from view, being covered by the three components bolted to it. The assembly is called the body or in America the bottom. If a plough has three bodies in England it will be described as a three-furrow plough because it will turn three furrows; in America it will be called a three-bottom plough.
Above the share point is a knife coulter or rolling disc coulter suspended from the beam, which makes the vertical cut on the land side of the furrow slice, i.e. the side of the unploughed land. Beside or in front of the coulter is a skimmer: this is a small plough body that skims the top of the soil to remove the trash and drop it into the previous open furrow bottom. In Jersey the locally made 'big plough' has only a large skimmer, having no knife or disc coulter, but some modern imported big ploughs have a knife or disc coulter.
If the plough is a digger type ploughing a 12 in. (30 cm) deep and 14 in. or 16 in. (35 or 40 cm) wide furrow, the mouldboard will be deep and have an abrupt curve to crumble the soil as it lifts and turns the furrow slice. It is used on a mixed loam soil or light sandy soil of which we have both in Jersey. The general purpose plough, not used in Jersey but popular in England, will work between 5 in. and 7 in. (12-17.5 cm) deep at the most. It has a mouldboard with a long, slow- turning helix: the furrow is not crumbled but unbroken, and is simply inverted and pressed to lie against its neighbour; it is used on heavy clay land.
Some ploughs, usually confined to the West Midlands, the south, and South-West of England, have very long, shallow mouldboards measuring up to 4 ft (120 cm) long with a very slow turn to lean the furrow over against the previous furrow at a precise angle. A cast iron share known as a 'high-cut' share is cast with an upward curve at the middle of the wing to cut the furrow bottom high in the centre and produce a specially shaped furrow known as a 'high cut', or the 'oat seed' furrow. Each furrow slice must be sealed against its neighbour. The finished work looks like a piece of corduroy. Ploughing the oat seed furrow was done prior to sowing oats: the seeds were broadcast by hand and must not fall through any gap between the furrows but lie in the bottom of the V formed by the furrows leaning one against the other. It is very skilful ploughing performed with horses and beloved of ploughing match enthusiasts, but quite useless today with mechanical sowing machines!
The Jersey farmer uses the digger body, as it suits the Island's medium loam soil and produces a friable broken furrow requiring the minimum of further cultivation to prepare a seed bed. The author's father used to say in the potato planting season, 'plough in the morning and plant in the afternoon'. That is easy on our lighter loam soils but quite impossible on heavy clay soils in many parts of Britain, where they have to plough in the autumn and leave the winter frosts to break down and crumble the soil before planting in the spring. Between these two types of body is the semi-digger body, which has a slightly abrupt curve at the front of the mouldboard with a short twist or helix towards the back of the mouldboard; it is almost as long as a general purpose. They are very popular in the British Isles and are in general use in many parts.
Today's farmers with high-powered tractors and power-operated cultivators can get on the land and prepare seed beds in many areas in the autumn, provided the conditions are suitable, where previously the ploughed land would be left over the winter to weather and allow the frost to do its work.
