Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (1.1968/1971)

160

VIGGO NIELSEN

determines the regular rectangular, square or
diamond shaped areas of apparently undisturbed
subsoil sand between the marks. This need not
mean that there have been correspondingly un-
touched areas in the higher soil, as the breaking
action of the plough will usually widen upwards
in a funnel-shaped spread. This however could
not be traced. Only in a few places were plough-
marks found in the higher soil, it was remarkable
that these higher lying marks which did not
merge into the subsoil, appeared as the usual
thin strips.
Ploughing in parallel tracks, as here, can gen-

erally be regarded as the elementary link in the
systematization of this working process. It is
therefore to be expected all over, as a common
rule.
The distance between the furrows will also be
functionally conditioned, for instance depending
on whether breaking in, or loosening of the soil
or ploughing in of seed corn, was going on.
In soil previously broken up, the furrows will
lie as close as is necessary to stir and loosen the
surface. There is no need to go closer than this,
and indeed, the share would slip into the first
furrow if the next was too near. The normal

Fig. 6. Detail of crossing plough marks with five orientations distinguishable. Photo Henrik Vensild & Palle
Friis

Detailbild sich kreuzender Pflugspuren, auf dem sich fiinf Hauptrichtungen erkennen lassen.