based on them, how is the legend of the John Deere steel plow to be explained? There are several likely reasons. It is possible that the first plow, in 1837, was made from a broken steel mill saw. It is also possible that within a few years puddled iron came to be used for the moldboards because of the scarcity of suitable steel, either in the form of broken mill saws or as plates ordered from foundries in America (the high price of steel imported from England made this an impractical source). However, it seems more likely that it became known as a steel plow owing to the importance Deere attached to his plows having steel shares, as shown in his advertisement in 1843. A steel share, tougher than cast iron, would hold an edge much better than wrought iron, and John Muir's description of prairie plowing, quoted earlier, substantiates the importance of a tough, sharp share.

Deere's plows, probably distinctive by reason of their steel shares, may have been called "steel" plows, in the regions where they were used, to distinguish them from the standard wooden plows and from the newer cast-iron implements. The term "wooden plow" has a similar history. For well over 2000 years in Europe some plows have been made with iron shares and the rest of the structure wood. Plows in 18th-century America were made principally of wood with iron shares, colters, and clevises, and with strips of iron frequently covering the wooden moldboard. These implements were called, simply, plows of various regional types. Not until the development and spread of the factory-made plows with cast-iron moldboards, landsides, and standards did the term "wooden plow" come into use to differentiate all these plows from the newer ones. Subsequently writers have been led to assume that "wooden plow" meant a plow with no iron parts and consequently to make unwarranted statements about the primitiveness of the 18th-century implements.

A second reason for use of the term "steel plow" may have developed from the supposition that the moldboards of the first John Deere plows were made of diamond-shaped sections cut from old mill saws, which later writers seem to have assumed were made of steel. (It is probable that from the late 1850's on Deere plows had steel moldboards.) However, mill saws of the early 19th century were not necessarily made of steel, which was then relatively expensive. I have been told of an old mill saw made of wrought iron on which was welded a steel edge that carried the teeth.[21] Rees' Cyclopaedia[22] describes saws as being made of either wrought iron or steel, the latter being preferable. Therefore, it seems most likely that Deere's plows, from his first until the middle 1850's were made with highly polished wrought-iron moldboards and steel shares.

RECONSTRUCTIONS

The remains of the 1838 plow are shown in figures 7 and 9. One's curiosity is aroused as to what the plow looked like in its original state, complete with handles. Several full-scale 3-dimensional reconstructions and a number of sketches of the 1837 plow have been made. The reconstructions all must have been based on the remains of the 1838 plow, since they resemble it closely and it is the only surviving plow of this type known.

Recently I received a photograph (fig. 3, right) of a plow which has been boxed and in storage for many years at Deere & Company which may be an early Deere plow. As it appears in the photograph, the plow looks unconvincing. The handles are fastened by bolts and nuts, a manner uncommon in American plow making in the early 19th century. The shape of the handles is that of stock handles available for small plows and cultivators in such a catalog as Belknap's. The plow seems very high and weakly braced. There is no logical reason for curving the end of the beam down and cutting it off at a slant if the handles are attached in the manner shown. The edges of the tenon on the upper end of the standard where it goes through the mortise in the beam have been neatly beveled in a manner I have never seen before on any other plow. All of this leads me to think that this is an early reconstruction based on the remains of the 1838 plow which it only roughly approximates in proportion and design.

Another of these reconstructions is shown in figure 3, left. Although superficially like the 1838 plow it varies considerably in its proportions, in the angular relations of its parts, and in other details such as the use of iron bolts and nuts in place of wooden pins. All these reconstructions agree in one thing. They show a plow with handles fastened to both sides of the plow beam and standard.

During an examination of the 1838 plow it occurred to me that there was no indication of an attachment of a handle on the landside in the same manner as on the furrow side. The position and attachment of the handle in figure 7 is clearly indicated by the remains of a wooden pin in the side of the plow beam near the rear end and by the large iron staple, in the side of the standard, which must have held the tapered lower end of the handle. Figure 8 is a sketch showing this handle in position. The landside view of this plow in figure 9 shows that the pin did not extend through the beam nor are there marks on the standard to indicate the position of a staple like that on the furrow side. The four holes approximately in line on the standard and beam show where a piece of sheet metal had been nailed to hold the beam and standard in about the right position. The outline of the sheet metal can be seen on the side of the beam. This was removed at the time this examination was made.

How was the landside handle attached? W. E. Bridges of the National Museum suggests that it might have been attached to the lower side of the standard and the rear end of the plow beam. This seems, beyond doubt, to be correct. The wood has deteriorated considerably over the years and the joints are loose, but, within the limits of the existing structure, the plow beam can easily be set in such a position that its sloping rear end lines up with the slope of the underside of the standard. Furthermore, a long bolt runs from the upper part of the moldboard through the standard and projects quite far beyond its lower surface, as can be seen in figure 7. The end of the bolt is threaded only part way and it has been necessary to put a cylindrical metal spacer on it in order to draw up the nut snugly. This long bolt must originally have passed through the lower end of the handle, which, in turn, was fastened to the end of the plow beam by a tenon on