History of Forestry Ploughs
This is the first of a series of three excellent, detailed and very descriptive articles by S A Neustein in the Scottish Forestry Society magazine Scottish Forestry in January 1976. His follow up articles 'Historical review of ploughing on wet soils' and 'Historical review of ploughing on drier soils' were published in Vol 30, No.2 and No.3 of the same year. If you can lay your hands on these magazines they do give a very full account, with many illustrations, of the developments from hand cultivation and horse ploughs in the 1920s through to the large tractor pulled machines of 1976. I have not located it yet but believe that perhaps someone D A Thomson? may have done a follow up article charting the evolution to the 1980s and the swing away from continous ribbon ploughing. Plough development and ploughing was one of the major contributing factors to the very successful expansion of forestry, particularly into the more difficult heathlands, compacted and ironpan soils and wet lands; these increasingly being the only type of sites that were available for planting trees on as the 20th century progressed.
Groups: Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Tractors Ploughs and Drainage Machines