greymaus wrote in message
...
In article , Jim Webster wrote:

Oz wrote in message
...
In article , Jim Webster
jim@everyone
.knows.where.by.now writes

The is a small almost circular field round here that they did
plough
it
as one furrow. Literally just went in and spiraled toward the
centre.

I'll bet he wished he hadn't when he got towards the centre!

All that running over your ploughed land, UGH!

may not have been as bad with horses (by the time tractors were
introduced one hedge had come out and made it a part of a 5 acre
field.)
and disk harrowing it might have been easier.
It is the only example I can think of.


They plough to follow contours in the MidWest (USA) , don't they?

I've taken the liberty of x posting this to sci agric as Gordon will be
able to answer this.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'

On 9/29/02 4:09 AM, in article , "Jim
Webster" wrote:

They plough to follow contours in the MidWest (USA) , don't they?

I've taken the liberty of x posting this to sci agric as Gordon will be
able to answer this.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'


Traditional plowing is pretty much a thing of the past in Nebraska. I
don't know about Gordon's area in Oklahoma. Plowing is too slow for modern
farmers. It also leads to a lot more soil erosion than current practices.
U.S. farm programs require a certain amount of organic matter be left on the
surface. Farmers use discs, field cultivators, and chisel plows nowadays. A
good number use minimum or no till.
Some farmers still use plows to maintain terraces. They would follow the
terraces in the past. I saw one farmer plowing last summer. It's been
probably 20 years since I've seen a farmer plowing before that.
A farmer with a regular plow would divide the field in sections and plow
the field in strips. The place where the headlands met was called a dead
furrow. A very few farmers had rollover plows. They would start on one side
of the field and work their way across.

Dean

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

greymaus wrote in message
...
In article , Jim Webster wrote:

Oz wrote in message
...
In article , Jim Webster
jim@everyone
.knows.where.by.now writes

The is a small almost circular field round here that they did
plough
it
as one furrow. Literally just went in and spiraled toward the
centre.

I'll bet he wished he hadn't when he got towards the centre!

All that running over your ploughed land, UGH!

may not have been as bad with horses (by the time tractors were
introduced one hedge had come out and made it a part of a 5 acre
field.)
and disk harrowing it might have been easier.
It is the only example I can think of.

====================
The solution to irreguarl feilds is to turn short on the pointed end as it
shortens up and then work it as a long feild as you finish. We had one feild
that my dad could work in 11 hours, it took me 12, my brother 12 and half
and we had on hand it took 18. Had my dad had more practice with the tools
larger than he was uesed to I expect he could have done it in close to 10
hours. It was a terraced feild that we followed the contour and it had very
large number of small areas that didn't match the size of the equipment. A
much worse condtion than the round feild that you work until the circle is
small and then make a square feild when the plow quits working right because
of the constatn turning.

Another practice is to plow the field and then work the turn rows and aqward
spots with a chisel plow when the dead furrow would cause a wash. Since 3
point plows have become availbe strarting in the center of the feild and
throwing the dirt to the center and rasing the plow and doing a 270 degree
turn at the corner is occasionaly done to get rid of the dead furrows.

In the US the moldbord plow has almost been abandonond in the western part
of the country. I understand it not used much in the mid west and south east
either. The high cost per acres and no real advantage of more modern methods
keep most of the plows in the weeds except for a few jobs like plowing up an
alflafla meadow where you need to cut the roots, building up terraces and
trying to bury weed seed though not many folks can set one good enough to
really turn the ground over well enough to get rid of weed any more.

Gordon

They plough to follow contours in the MidWest (USA) , don't they?

I've taken the liberty of x posting this to sci agric as Gordon will be
able to answer this.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'

greymaus wrote in message
...
In article , Jim Webster wrote:

Oz wrote in message
...
In article , Jim Webster
jim@everyone
.knows.where.by.now writes

The is a small almost circular field round here that they did
plough
it
as one furrow. Literally just went in and spiraled toward the
centre.

I'll bet he wished he hadn't when he got towards the centre!

All that running over your ploughed land, UGH!

may not have been as bad with horses (by the time tractors were
introduced one hedge had come out and made it a part of a 5 acre
field.)
and disk harrowing it might have been easier.
It is the only example I can think of.


They plough to follow contours in the MidWest (USA) , don't they?

I've taken the liberty of x posting this to sci agric as Gordon will be
able to answer this.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'

On 9/29/02 4:09 AM, in article , "Jim
Webster" wrote:

They plough to follow contours in the MidWest (USA) , don't they?

I've taken the liberty of x posting this to sci agric as Gordon will be
able to answer this.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'


Traditional plowing is pretty much a thing of the past in Nebraska. I
don't know about Gordon's area in Oklahoma. Plowing is too slow for modern
farmers. It also leads to a lot more soil erosion than current practices.
U.S. farm programs require a certain amount of organic matter be left on the
surface. Farmers use discs, field cultivators, and chisel plows nowadays. A
good number use minimum or no till.
Some farmers still use plows to maintain terraces. They would follow the
terraces in the past. I saw one farmer plowing last summer. It's been
probably 20 years since I've seen a farmer plowing before that.
A farmer with a regular plow would divide the field in sections and plow
the field in strips. The place where the headlands met was called a dead
furrow. A very few farmers had rollover plows. They would start on one side
of the field and work their way across.

Dean

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

greymaus wrote in message
...
In article , Jim Webster wrote:

Oz wrote in message
...
In article , Jim Webster
jim@everyone
.knows.where.by.now writes

The is a small almost circular field round here that they did
plough
it
as one furrow. Literally just went in and spiraled toward the
centre.

I'll bet he wished he hadn't when he got towards the centre!

All that running over your ploughed land, UGH!

may not have been as bad with horses (by the time tractors were
introduced one hedge had come out and made it a part of a 5 acre
field.)
and disk harrowing it might have been easier.
It is the only example I can think of.

====================
The solution to irreguarl feilds is to turn short on the pointed end as it
shortens up and then work it as a long feild as you finish. We had one feild
that my dad could work in 11 hours, it took me 12, my brother 12 and half
and we had on hand it took 18. Had my dad had more practice with the tools
larger than he was uesed to I expect he could have done it in close to 10
hours. It was a terraced feild that we followed the contour and it had very
large number of small areas that didn't match the size of the equipment. A
much worse condtion than the round feild that you work until the circle is
small and then make a square feild when the plow quits working right because
of the constatn turning.

Another practice is to plow the field and then work the turn rows and aqward
spots with a chisel plow when the dead furrow would cause a wash. Since 3
point plows have become availbe strarting in the center of the feild and
throwing the dirt to the center and rasing the plow and doing a 270 degree
turn at the corner is occasionaly done to get rid of the dead furrows.

In the US the moldbord plow has almost been abandonond in the western part
of the country. I understand it not used much in the mid west and south east
either. The high cost per acres and no real advantage of more modern methods
keep most of the plows in the weeds except for a few jobs like plowing up an
alflafla meadow where you need to cut the roots, building up terraces and
trying to bury weed seed though not many folks can set one good enough to
really turn the ground over well enough to get rid of weed any more.

Gordon

They plough to follow contours in the MidWest (USA) , don't they?

I've taken the liberty of x posting this to sci agric as Gordon will be
able to answer this.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'