Stump-jump Plough - Breakthrough

Breakthrough

In 1876 a special plough was invented by agricultural machinery apprentice Richard Bowyer Smith, and later developed and perfected by his brother, Clarence Herbert Smith, on the Yorke Peninsula (where the problem was particularly acute). The plough consisted of any number of hinged shares: when the blade encountered an underground obstacle like a mallee stump, it would rise out of the ground. Attached weights forced the blade back into the ground after the root was passed, allowing as much of the ground to be furrowed as possible. Although a little unorthodox, the plough in action appearing "like a ship in a storm", it proved remarkably effective, and was dubbed the "stump-jump" plough.

The invention was hailed as a "complete revolution" and, in combination with the process of mullenizing, was adopted almost universally across the mallee lands, even proving as useful in stony ground as it was in mallee country.