Fowler Balance Plough
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Fowler Balance Plough |
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A large model of a Fowler Balance Plough.
The balance plough was the further development of the Fowler cultivator designed to be hauled back and forth between a pair of ploughing engines.
The balance plough
Normal cultivator rigs flipped over the soil to one side, but since they were ploughing alternative furrows in opposite directions as they worked back and forth between the two ploughing engines, the furrows made during each pass were turned over in opposite directions. This meant that two adjacent channels from different passes might be turned towards each other (encouraging a hump) or away from each other (encouraging a trough).
The balance plough avoided this by having two separate sets of blades. When the plough was pulled in one direction, one set of blades would dig into the ground and do the ploughing, and when it was then pulled in the opposite direction, the plough would tilt like a seesaw, the first set of blades would raise into the air, and the second set of blades would engage with the soil.
The two sets of blades were designed to flip the soil in different directions (left-handed / right-handed), the result being that when adjacent sets of furrows were ploughed in opposite directions, the soil for each furrow would always end up being turned in the same direction as its neighbours, producing a more even and uniformly-ploughed field
