Plow Advice

Good questions. And one of my favorite subjects.

Walking with a plowman’s knot and a walking plow is probably a really natural thing for turn-of-the-last-century farmer. I have found it really challenging. A little too challenging.

In my experiences, horses that are not accustomed to plowing are best started with a sulky. If you use a pole and neckyoke, you have your team linked and spaced at the right distance at the front and that is one less variable to contend with. Then your furrow horse needs to learn to walk in the furrow. They don’t like this, always try to climb out one way or the other, then your plow goes awry. But they will learn. With your hands on the reins only you can focus on keeping that furrow horse in the furrow and let the plow take care of itself.

I am not a big fan of the two-way. It seems that one of the main reasons for using them was for plowing hillsides so that one would always be plowing with the earth flipping downhill. We all know that we shouldn’t be plowing steep hillsides, and if we do, we want a layout that won’t hasten erosion more than necessary. Also I find that it’s tricky to change directions and have the physics remain the same. Keep in mind your furrow horse alternates with each change of direction, which keeps them guessing.

Learning how to layout a field for a single bottom is not a big deal. So I am a fan of the single bottom sulky. There are relatively few things to adjust, and those are pretty easy to master. I have a pioneer with a kverneland bottom. If you have lighter soil you don’t need that bottom. It wasn’t cheap, but it is the best. You can order one just the same from White Horse through Ted Russel or pioneer from Pat Palmer. But you probably know this.

I know where there are a few junk sulkies sitting in hedgerows, if you prefer a project to outright expense. Viability depends chiefly on the condition of the bottom and the absence of damage due to, for instance, having been pulled at high speed/power with a tractor then hitting a rock. If the beam looks true then it probably is. If the bottom is worn, you may be able to replace it. A new bottom is relatively cheap from the above mentioned suppliers.

If you want to try out sulky plowing here you may consider yourselves invited.

@Rick Alger 1221 wrote:

If you have a forecart, you can pull that walking plow with it. You’ll still need someone guiding the plow, but once you’ve got things adjusted, you’ll be able to plow straight.

That is a great idea. I wish I had thought of that.

We own a collection of plows, all with something wrong with them. The one we use is a borrowed walking plow. The first year, we couldn’t make it work at all, ended up hiring someone with a tractor to get our sod turned. The second and third years, Mark and I plowed together, one driving horses and the other guiding the plow. Last year, I was pregnant and Mark learned to plow by himself, but occasionally I’d go out and drive the horses for him, just because it was fun. I have a picture of us plowing together, me with a giant belly. I like seeing the soil up close and really feeling the draft it takes to turn earth. For what it’s worth, it took us a while to figure out how to adjust even the simple walking plow properly.

I guess if we were doing it over we might have allocated more budget toward a good plow at the beginning instead of fooling around with broken or inappropriate ones, but I’m glad we were forced to learn to use the walking plow.

all best,
Kristin

I have had many of the same experiences as others. A walking plow can be one of the great pleasures of working with horses. It can also be difficult to get horses started that have never plowed before. You keep stopping to make corrections and they never get a sense of what you are trying to do. A couple of observations I have made in my limited experience with plowing are Long furrows are better than short ones; and plowing sod or old pasture is much harder work than plowing in last years garden.

On our current farm no one had plowed for many years. Mostly because we are a hill top, pasture based dairy farm. all our gardens have been close to the house and dug with a shovel or a rototiller. Last year I wanted plow a 1/4 acre to experiment with some new crops. I have a good walking plow, and I tried different combinations of horses and mules. The plow didn’t scour very quickly and the horses and mules were all over the place, but we made some furrows (all my former plow horses have passed away and this was a first time for all these). Then I borrowed an old trailer plow from a neighbor. These are plows on wheels that were towed behind old style tractors before three point hitches became popular. With two twelve inch bottoms this hooked great to a fore cart. It has a rope you pull from the seat of the fore cart that trips the plows and down they go. Pull it again and they pop out of the ground. It was a lot of load for three on the fore cart, but they did it. This year I may try it with fore up.

I only mention it as another cheap alternative, there are alot of these trailer plows (some with a single bottom) in the hedge row as well. Like a sulky plow, you can set the depth and go in a straight line, so they make it much easier for a novice or horses that are new to plowing to make a good looking job. That is plowing pasture sod also.

I might be able to chime in here real quick.

From having turned wrenches, busted rust, greased and painted enough machinery to have the stuff permently embedded in my body, I think I can lend a hand. I swear, I’ll never rot once I die, I’m so full of industrial chemicals.

In choosing machinery, I think the lines to follow are clear, but figuring out where you fit in there isn’t easy. More so when the things you want or need to do with any piece of equipment are always changing.

If you buy a beat up piece of machinery you’re probably going to spend less to start with. However, it may (more often than not, I believe) end up being more hassle than it’s worth. You have to decide how much your time is worth to you and more importantly, your sanity. To me, time is nothing when working for myself or a friend. Money is harder to come by. And sanity, well, that’d break my doctor-patient privilage to get into.

But then again, working on such machinery can do wonders for people. Swelling of pride and knuckles aside, keeping old iron alive drives people to make some very poor and interesting life choices. Hilarity usually insues.

One more part of the old iron side, if you’re not doing a whole lot of work, you made not need to do very much maintenance to your equipment. If you drive a forecart only a few times a month, as long as it’s reasonable well covered, you may not need to check tire pressure once a month or grease wheels bearing more than once every 5-6 years. Or at all for that matter.

If you’re depending on your equipment for a living, it always pays to keep your gear in tip-top shape. Absolutely, no agruement. Which bring us to the other side of the coin.

Brand spanking new equipment!

And boy, is some of it expensive!

But what I’ve seen so far at Animal Power Field Days and used on Bound Brook Farm I can say with certainty that it’s all well made. That Pioneer KV bottom plow of Eriks with proper upkeep should easily last him the rest of his life, his kids and maybe a few more generations. There may need to be a few parts of the plow itself that has to be replaced and was designed to do this relatively easily. Grease is always cheaper than parts, so slather that stuff on!

I like lots of equipment, so I’m a little biased against buying just a three point forecart and using a bunch of little tractor equipment to farm. Certainly can be less expensive if you want new stuff, but equipment designed to be used for a certain task, in a certain manner will always out perform something that has been merely adapted to the situation.

I think some of the members of the forum that have seen and worked with the older horse drawn stuff that ended up being pulled by tractors can attest to how this works. You take a plow that was meant to be pulled slowly and reasonably gently and strap it behind a 20 horse power tractor. Start down the field and let the carnage begin.

While I do think having a piece of equipment for each task you need to pull off is a great way to go if you have the money, I do like HYDRAULIC three point hitches. If you are going to use a forecart, hydraulic is the way to go. With a “wet” system, force is only applied upward. As in, the system is always trying to lift the implement. If your plow is setup right, the plow will want to stay in the ground. So when, not if, you hit an obstacle, the hydraulic lift will help pull it out or over the obstacle. I think that may be more critical for use behind a tractor because of the speed involved, but every little bit helps. Easier than backing up a plow, I think. Easier to lift, too.

It all kind of boils down to what you need, or think you’ll need. “What you think you’ll need” is commonly translated into, “want”.

Either way you go, preventive maintenance will always pay off better than just letting it all fall apart.

You know, just a quick reply.

Jonny B.

@Jean 1234 wrote:

I would like to find a town in Vermont that would welcome a group of teamsters to come and plow their garden space, make a day of it and open the eyes to a few more people about how great life can be with draft horses.

Anybody here have any thoughts on this idea?

Jean

Middlebury College has a pretty big student garden in a field with excellent tilth so I’m told. I bet they would be on fire to have this happen. If you want to investigate this possiblity, I’d be curious to hear from you whether they bite or not.

We use a Syracuse walking plow with a team, Pioneer 14in right hand sulky with a standard radex bottom with 3, and a converted Little Genius “McCormick” rope trip 2 bottom with 6 using the rope and pulley hitch. 4 will pull it but 6 will plow all day with less rest breaks. There are many good walking plows and if you get the “knack” they really require little effort to use if they are adjusted properly. As far as the new one way sulkies there is really little difference between Pioneer, White Horse and Hochstetler “Soil Master”. The McCormick works good in our soil although the Pioneer gang plow looks like a sweet ride but expensive. Ours is set up similar with a tongue, seat and dashboard. The old 2 way sulkies are ok for occasional use but a walking plow or newer sulky does a way better job as well as our converted tractor plow. some folks have even gone as far as retro fitting new radex bottoms on the old sulkies for improved results. Good luck with whatever you choose but this is what works for us but we only plow 20-25 acres a year .