A Bi-Monthly Magazine
Borrowing From Yesterday To Do the Work Of Today
Offering Resources to Promote Self-Sufficient & Back-to-the-Land Living
Walking Plow Line of Draft
by John Deere
The heavy-line horse is hitched correctly. The dotted line shows the same horse with the hitch raised to accommodate a short hitch. If the dotted-line horse were hitched the same as the heavy-line horse, an up-pull in the beam would result. Tugs that are too long have the opposite effect. Raising or lowering the clevis corrects the line of draft from the hame to the point of draft.
The team's size bears directly on the point of hitch. The smaller horse (dotted outline) requires a lower hitch than a larger horse. The clevis must be lowered to maintain a straight line from the point of draft through point of hitch to the hame. 
Return to: Setting Walking Plowshares
Author
John Deere Company originally published The Operation, Care and Repair of Farm Machinery fin 1932, from which the above was reprinted in
Evener 1998
issue of Rural Heritage magazine.
