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Johnny, I always thought it was fun n I took pride in a good job of ploughing (some years back) . Some of the basics, most of which are covered below: The plows left/rigth drawbar pull point and/or tractor wheel spacing needs to be set so the distance from the inside of the right furrow wheel to the first plowshares point/tip is the width of the plows i.e. a 12 or 14 or 16 inch whatever the plow..... What Im saying is the tractors furrow wheel (and a pull behind plows in the furrow wheel) or side to side drawbar plow hitch point needs adjusted so the width of the plow is cutting the correct first ( 12 or 14 or 16) width of land. The plow needs adjusted level such that all its shares (like a 2 or 3 or 4 bottom plow) are cutting the same depth so the field will be level i.e. NOT have the first plow digging 8 inches n the last one only 6. Depending on the plow thats done by raising or lowering the furrow wheel (if it has one) and the other land/furrow wheels In an IDEAL (I never had many lol) rectangular field a good farmer would alternate yearly his head lands and dead furrows so the field stayed fairly lever over the years. Say you had a rectangle area you wished to plow, the first year you would go to the dead center of the area and drive n plow right down the middle n then make an immediate right u turn and drive back the other way to throw the unplowed dirt right up against that other fresh plowed earth ending up with somewhat of a high spot middle hump. Then keep turning right at each end. Doing this you are always throwing the dirt in towards the fields enter. Thennnnn nnnnn the next year do just the opposite, start at the outsides of the area throwign the dirt towards the fields middle and you end up with a dead furrow in the middle where the high hump headland was the year before. One thing I HATED was those curvy end bow shaped lands at the ends of the field where you raised the plow. Instead of CORRECT straight rows they ended up bow elliptical shape grrrrr r towards the middle. To make the rows straight at the ends one has to keep looking n driving dead straight ahead until the plow is alllll ll the way out of the ground. Nowwwww w sometimes the field was plowed and then the fields ends plowed the 90 degree opposite direction to plow them. Howeverrrrr rrrr if the farmer was real good at plowing he drove all the way plowing aorund the field i.e. he plowed ends n sides BOTH buttttt ttttt he picked the plow up at the exact correct space/time to end up with those 4 angular diamond shaped lands to go n plow out last wooooo oo hooooo looked beautifuly buttttt ttt I admit I never was that good grrrrr rrrr Looks like moldboard ploughing is a thing of the past n a lost art nowadays John T (Good plowing wannabee)
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