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Plow terminology

T

toolz

Well-known Member
Where did the term "set of plows" originate? Seems the east/north east folks use the term instead of just calling it a plow. All of my factory manuals say "plow". Why not "set of planters" or "set of cultivators"? Don't mean to insult anybody, just wondering.
 
I have noticed the terms used in other parts of the country as well. I have seen some call it a set of cultivators on here. As well as a set of discs.

Where I'm from it is a plow, a disc, a cultivator or field cultivator, and a planter.

A field cultivator is a tillage tool used before planting and a cultivator is what is mounted on the tractor to get the weeds between the rows after the crop is up and growing.

That's our terms here in eastern Iowa.

Where are you from and what do you call them?

Gary
 
Related to your question, I've heard mostly old timers (hey thats me nowadays) refer to a plow as a "breaking plow" whats that all about anyway???? Is a breaking plow same as any other plow???

An ever curious John T
 
In my area, a plow, regardless of the number of bottoms, is a plow. It is not a set of plows, and a multiple bottom plow is not referred to as plows.

Dean
 
Around "here", the term breaking plow came into use when tractors became common, which MOSTLY happened after WWII. Before that, they were one-horse or two-horse turning plows........even though they were almost exclusively pulled with mules.
Boll_Weevil.jpg

plowing2.jpg
 
Here in my area of SW Ontario we use the following terms

Plow - regardless the # of bottoms

Cultivator - for weed control between rows

Cultivator / Triple K - use either term for field tillage

-i.e - we triple K'd / ( or cultivated )the bean ground

My father referred to a breaking plow as term old timers used for large single furrow pull type plows used to turn over new ground .

I have one in the yard that my father in law owned . Has much more clearence than other plows of the era .
 
Gary,I believe the set of cultivators comes from the fact that we used to have to put the cultivators together to use them(mount on tractor)Just my take on it.
 
I have a theory:

If ya remember, the owners manual would say on the cover "Model X, Y & Z Cultivators", which indicated that the manual covered one or more models in the same publication.

So, some joker somewhere picked up on the (s) and decided that it must mean that the machine was a pural of itself. :>)

Allan
 
Here in south,central Ontario a row crop cultivator is normally referred to as a "scuffler", used to scuffle the ground between the rows. When I worked in Iowa in the late '70s. inter-row cultivation was referred to as "plowing"....that one took a while to catch on to!!
 
Different terms in different areas:

As I young man living in east-central Iowa, we pulled a "spring tooth" harrow behind our M Farmall. It was about 10 ft wide, had 3 rows of big arched springs with the ends sharpened, a lever for adjusting depth and it just dragged along on a steel frame, no wheels. We used it to break up the soil before planting. It pulled hard considering it was not a large implement.

I moved to Wisconsin in 1973 and noticed on farm auction handbills they were selling a "quack digger". I never heard of that before. Sure enough, it was what we called the "spring tooth".
They are still called quack diggers around here.

And...if you go to the Milwaukee area and look for a drinking fountain and can't find one, you ask the locals where the "bubbler" is and they will help you. (Outdoor bubblers are not working in Milwaukee this morning).
LA in WI
 
In Kansas in the pioneer days when they plowed an area never before plowed it was called "breaking the soil" thus the term breaking plow was the plow used for breaking or plowing virgin soil. That is a term used in the 1800s. My Grandfather was a homesteader in Nebraska after the Civil War and broke several hundred acres of land using a team of horses and a breaking plow.
 
Breaking plow around here is a one bottom, with an extra wide moldboard, and a cover plate, or follower, that finishes turning over the sod.
 
I'm learning all sorts of new terms! Never heard of a "scuffler" or a "triple K" (except for that club in the deep south LOL). Now that you mention it, my dad used to say "plowing corn" instead of cultivating.
 
Would go back to the days of horse pulled equipment when the 1 bottom walking plow was standard, now if you put 2 bottoms on that one frame you had a set of or pair of plow bottoms (and yes there were walking plows that had up to 3 bottoms on them). The same would go with the cultivator as a 1 row and a 2 row would be a set or pair. Think about dinner ware of a set that may have enough for 6 people in a total set but a place set had enouth pieces for 1 person.
 
The difference would have been in the style of the teeth,, on the spring tooth thetooth is the same width all the way from top to bottom. On the quack tooth at about 2/3 the way to the bottom the flat steel of the tooth is changed to a rolled up section that is perhaps 1/3 the width of the rest of the tooth but still has the same strength, then at the very bottom it is flattened out againat about 1/2 the width of the top part and instead of having a point like the standard spring tooth has it is square cut. If I had the capability to scan and post a picture it would help explain things. The quack tooth is designed for laying the quack grass with the root up on top of the surface of the ground so the roots would dry out and therefore die. The other teeth are more designed just for loosening the ground. The 1956 Wards farm catalog that I am looking at has both pictured. And there used to be a bulitin put out by the USDA that explaines it, I may have someware in all my stuff one of them.
 
Nothing beats the term of chopping corn to me though, as some areas call it that, when hoeing it for weeds. Around my area which is the midwest We were filling silo or putting it in a bunk.
 
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