A spring-tooth harrow, sometimes called a drag harrow, is a type of

harrow Harrow may refer to: Places * Harrow, Victoria, Australia * Harrow, Ontario, Canada * The Harrow, County Wexford, a village in Ireland * London Borough of Harrow, England ** Harrow, London, a town in London ** Harrow (UK Parliament constituency) ...

, and specifically a type of tine harrow. It is a largely outdated piece of

farm equipment Agricultural machinery relates to the mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractors and the countless kinds of farm implements that th ...

. It uses many flexible iron teeth mounted in rows to loosen the soil before planting. It is set in the ground and raised manually and cannot be backed up; this is why it has been replaced by more modern equipment such as the chisel plow and

field cultivator A cultivator is a piece of agricultural equipment used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to frames with ''teeth'' (also called ''shanks'') that pierce the soil as they are dragged through it linearly. It also refers to mac ...

. A drag harrow more specifically refers to a largely outdated type of

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former ...

cultivation implement that is used to smooth the ground as well as loosen it after it has been

plow A plough or plow (Differences between American and British spellings, US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are draw ...

ed and packed. It uses many flexible

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

teeth usually arranged into three rows. It has no

hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...

functionality and has to be raised/adjusted with one or multiple manual levers. It is a largely outdated piece of

, having been replaced by more modern

disc harrow A disc harrow is a harrow whose cutting edges are a row of concave metal discs, which may be scalloped or set at an oblique angle. It is an agricultural implement that is used to till the soil where crops are to be planted. It is also used to c ...

s and deeper, stiff-toothed rippers, however, smaller farmers still use them.

Uses

A drag harrow is used to loosen and even out soil after it has been

ed and packed. The drag harrow also kills some weeds that may be present, but it is not very efficient in doing so, and it is not one of its primary functions.

In modern times

The non-hydraulic drag harrow is not often used in modern farming as other harrows have proven to be more suitable, such as the

. Another reason they are not often used is because they cannot be controlled hydraulically, meaning that the

operator Operator may refer to: Mathematics * A symbol indicating a mathematical operation * Logical operator or logical connective in mathematical logic * Operator (mathematics), mapping that acts on elements of a space to produce elements of another ...

is required to dismount from the

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most comm ...

to adjust it or unclog it. However it is used as a drag behind several other implements such as a rod weeder. Due to their low cost and simplicity, old fashioned are still widely used by small farmers.

References

External links

{{Commonscat-inline, Spring-tooth harrows Agricultural machinery

Uses

In modern times

See also

References

External links