Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Second part - VI. Agriculture and Cattle-Breeding - 1. Agriculture. Partly after information from P. Lundell, Ebbetorp, Member of the Riksdag - Agricultural Machinery and Implements
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542
VI. AGRICULTURE AND CATTLE-BREEDING OF SWEDEN.
The introduction of the iron plough has been of the greatest importance for
agriculture. At first, wood was used for the frame, and cast and wrought iron
for the other parts. Nowadays, steel is used for the bills and knives, and iron
for the other parts. The home manufacture of ploughs began in the forties at
several iron-works, such as Svanå in Vestmanland, and Näfveqvarn and Åker in
Södermanland: many thousands of the strong Åker ploughs are exported, especially
to the Cape and North America, where they are used in the first ploughing of
wood-clearings. In the fifties, Öfverum Works in the Län of Kalmar, made a
specialty of the construction and manufacture of ploughs and of other agricultural
implements, and soon brought its figures to 3,000 ploughs and nearly 1,000
other agricultural implements yearly. In 1860, öfverum exhibited 14 different
numbers of swing-ploughs. In addition to these, skim-ploughs, drill-ploughs etc.,
came into use, and were continually improved both in point of construction and
of material. The latest types, constructed almost exclusively of steel, are now
greatly used. Even steam ploughs are found on some few large farms; these are,
however, not suitable except on the most level of our plains.
The doable mould-board plough, which is certainly the oldest implement
for labouring the ground with the help of animals, and which originally consisted
of a tree-trunk with two branches or roots left, has been developed and improved
of låte and is now mostly manufactured of iron, and is still in general use.
Harrows and rollers. Before 1840, harrows with straight teeth were used
for smoothing the ploughed-up soil, the teeth being made partly of wood, partly
of iron; drags (»the Swedish harrow») were also used, with their crooked or
goose-feet-shaped teeth. The construction of the harrow has continually improved, but
it is only during the last decade that an essentially new form has come into use,
in the shape of the American spring-harrow. The old Swedish rolling-harrow,
which was formerly built with the frame and rollers of wood, is now mostly
also made entirely of iron. The old-fashioned Småland link-harrow is still in
use for hilly and stony ground. The chain and link-harrows are used for clearing
the ground from weed-roots (especially crouch-grass), and for harrowing in
grass-seed ; both home and foreign constructions are used. Plate-harrows were introduced
about 1880, and have come into use on fen-lands.
From olden times, flat rollers of heavy wood (and sometimes of iron), and
grooved rollers of wood, shod with iron upon the grooves, and drags (tooth-drags
in Uppland) have been used for breaking up the clods, and smoothing and
leveling the surface of the fields. Amongst iron-rollers, the Cambridge one is that which
is most used at present: the very similar Crosskill-roller was used as early as
the fifties, here and there. The double ring-roller from France has come greatly
into use since 1870.
Sowlng-Machlnes. Polhem, Sweden’s earliest great mechanical inventor,
constructed, as early as in the 17th century, a corn-drill, which, however, was
considered as somewhat complicated, and presupposed level ground; in 1749,
Thunberg constructed a broad-sowing machine with light harrow, which was
successfully tried: models of both of these are to be found in the Museum of the
Academy of Agriculture. In more general use, and much in demand was the
corn-drill invented by Count Cronstedt (1765). Most probably, the use of the
corn-drill has not played any great röle before the seventies, when not only foreign
machines were imported, but a home manufacture commenced also. Nowadays,
such machines are used upon almost all large farms, and, in many districts, also
by small farmers.
Reaping and Harvesting Machinery. The form of the scythe has not
changed much since times immemorial. Linné, in 1749, mentions the Skåne
scythe as peculiar on account of the length of the handle, which permitted the
inower to go almost erect. This is still verv common. Scythes are always
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