Steel plow

What it is

A plough with a polished steel mouldboard that did not hold onto sticky prairie soil, made from a broken saw blade. It made it possible to break the prairie sod of the Great Plains.

Before Deere, John Lane (Illinois, 1833) had already forged steel ploughs, but Deere produced them serially.

What it led to

• Agricultural settlement of the Midwest and the Corn Belt
• The Deere & Company firm (Moline, 1848)
• The destruction of the native prairie and the future Dust Bowl
• Demand for steel for farm implements

Built on

• Rotherham plough1730
• Jethro Wood's cast-iron plough (1819)
• Rotherham plough (1730)
• Huntsman's crucible steel

Made possible

• Stump-jump plough1876
• Internal combustion tractor1892–1917
• Multiple-share plough
• Agricultural tractor
• Steam-traction plough

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