Plough Coupling Strap: Cross-Strap With Buckled Billets for a Pair of Horses (Hasluck, Harness Making, 1904)

"Couplings are also a necessary part of plough gear. In some localities only cross-straps are employed from mouth to mouth when ploughing in pairs."

Cut the strap 1 in wide and 28 in to 30 in long. Turn it in about 1 in at each end, make a hole for the buckle, and shave the points.

Cut two billets the same width, 1 ft long; trim them to a point at one end and shave the other. Edge them and crease them (the book prints "edge back, and crease them", probably for "edge, black").

Put the buckle in, then the thin end of the billet 2 in down at the back of the buckle. Put a loop between the chape by the buckle, and stitch one billet and buckle at each end. Punch two holes in each billet.

Sometimes two coupling straps are used for a pair, crossing each other from the hames of each horse to the mouth of the other. Make them the same way but longer: 38 in, each with 12 in billets. Some are made a foot longer and cut in two, one end 15 in long with a buckle and loop and the other made to buckle on, with many holes. Then the coupling can be shortened on a young horse's side, to keep it back until it has learned the ordinary working pace.

From **Harness Making**, edited by Paul N. Hasluck, Cassell, 1904 (Project Gutenberg 70169), chapter IX, "Plough Harness", couplings, pp. 110-111; every figure was checked on the archive.org scan (harnessmaking00hasl). He gives no buckle size; a 1 in buckle suits the 1 in strap. The picture is our diagram from his text. The tools and metric figures are ours.