Rational Horse Shoeing and Wagon Making
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with rules, tables, recipes, etc., useful to
manufactures, blacksmiths, machinists,
well-drillers, engineers, liverymen,
horse-shoers, farmers, wagon-makers,
mechanics, amateurs and all others who have
occasion to perform the work for which this
book is primarily intended.
second, because a good weld cannot be taken unless the share
is dressed down snug against the point when hot. As far as the
number of shares welded per day was concerned, this man was
not in it. Still, this man was a good plowman, and was doing
better than I ever saw a man with this idea do before. For it is a
fact, that out of one thousand plowshares welded by country
blacksmiths, nine hundred and ninety will rip up. I have been in
different States, and seen more than many have of this kind of
work, but, to tell the truth, there is no profession or trade
where there is so much poor work done as in blacksmithing,
and especially in plow work. Blacksmiths often come to me,
even from other States, to learn my ideas of making
plowshares. On inquiring, I generally find that they weld a piece
on the top of the old landside and proceed to weld without
touching the share or trying to fit it at all. We need not be
surprised at this ignorance, when we know that it is only fifty
years since John Deere reformed the plow industry entirely and
business, in so short a time, successfully. Still, I have seen blacksmiths prosper
and have quite a reputation as plowmen, white, for a fact, they never made a plowshare that was, from the
standpoint of a practical plowman, right.