It had a vertical sod-cutter, or
coulter, a horizonal cutting blade, or
plowshare, and a tilted
moldboard for turning over the soil. This efficient plow, which cut deep furrows and dug up more weeds, had two major problems. First, iron was expensive, although improvements in metallurgy around the turn of the millenium had resulted in iron tools that were not only less expensive but stronger as well. Still, the iron plow was too heavy to pull with the draft animals available to most farmers. A team of as many as eight oxen, or castrated bulls, could haul it, but oxen were very slow and costly to buy and feed.
Since horses were primarily used for transportation and warfare, they had been bredmostly for speed. The swift breeds that were valued were neither the largest nor the strongest. They were not well suited for use with the heavy three-piece iron plow. But knights wearing increasingly heavy armor began requiring stronger horses, and size and strength became more important in horse breeding. Finally farmers began breeding an offshoot of the Carolingian charger for agricultural work. These horses were three or four times faster than oxen, stronger, and more versatile.
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