Re: Early ploughing in North America

From: Daryl Krupa (icycalmca_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 02/10/05 

Date: 9 Feb 2005 21:31:25 -0800

tkavanagh (unmphd) wrote:
<snip>
> And also note that the soils of the
> Plains/Prairies were not "plow-able" until the
> steel plowshares of the 19th century.

  tk:
  La V. seems to be describing grassy meadows
within otherwise forested land, so not necessarily
Plains/Prairies (August 7, 1749):
" large tracts of land free from wood, but
   covered with a kind of very tall grass
   for the space of some days journey "

  La V. did not necessarily mean prairie, but
it might also be read as a description of prairie.
  In that case, the "fields" need not have been
many days journey across, just the "tracts of land".

http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/maps/historical/exploration/exploration1651_1760/we

  OR

http://tinyurl.com/4skvq

  The "furrows" might even have been natural
features;
we do not know their scale, or what was
originally meant by the word that was
twice-translated before it read "furrow".
  Kalm admits that his French is not perfect,
and that some French women laughed at his use
of French, so his translation of La V.'s word
could be suspect, and Forster did not necessarily
know what Kalm meant, either.

> And anyway, have you ever seen a plowed field
> after even only two or three years of fallow?
> There will be are no identifiable "furrows".

  Fields plowed with a moldboard plow?
  That depends.
  If you're talking about previously-tilled soil,
then yes.
  If you're talking about plowed sod, then no.

  Maize cultivators seemed to have not simply
planted seed in shallow linear depressions, as gardeners do today.
  It seems that they pile up dirt in raised mounds;
at least, that is what the East Coast settlers were
taught to do.

-
Daryl Krupa

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