How to plow the hard heathland

OF THE GREEN MUSEUM / WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2018

 

The Danish heathland has a special story. A story about hard work with the hard heathland soil. You can experience this story in the third episode of the DR series 'When we were farmers' .

The heath was hard and poor agricultural land that required a lot of work. But in the early 18th century, King Frederick IV (1671-1730) tried to get the farmers to try cultivating the heath.

From the beginning, heathland cultivation was carried out with spades. But from around 1850, when iron ploughs began to appear, the work became easier.

 

Shelf plowing

The picture shows Daniel Krath and his wife plowing the field. First she plows the top layer, then he plows the hard layer in her furrow.

 

The hard heathland soil consisted of the topsoil, where the heather plants grew, and an underlying, hard layer. This is called the alla layer, and often starts 20-30 cm below the surface.

The method of plowing it was using the rack plowing technique. This means that the topsoil was first plowed. Then the bottom of the plow furrow was plowed and the topsoil was covered with a new plow furrow. The goal was partly to break the hard alluvial layer – an almost impenetrable layer of precipitated substances from the upper layers – and partly to cover the burned topsoil with fresh raw soil from the hard alluvial layer.

The Hanoverian rack plough. Introduced in 1873 by Royal Forester Sophus Georg Frederik Jenssen-Tusch.

 

When ploughing with the 'Hanoveran plough', it was used to plough into the furrow after a regular swing plough. The two ploughs could plough to a combined depth of up to 22 inches – more than half a metre.

It took 4 horses to pull the 'Hanoveran shelf plough'. During a test of the plough in 1910, it was assessed that it was hard, but not an unreasonable workload for four horses.

 

Today, the last 2 percent of the heath is protected and stands as a memorial park to the many pioneers who cultivated large parts of the Jutland heath over the course of about 150 years.