Agricultural Progress and Profit.* other ; BY FRANKLIN DYE. Agriculture is the first industry, and the basis and support of every and the plow is the pioneer agricultural implement. It prepares the way for all crop production and calls into use all the other implements of husbandry. . The plow, from the earliest history of the race, has figured not only in the soil, but also in story and in song. The pageants of kings were not complete unless it had a place with the ox in the procession. Why this honor to this implement? From the soil riches, in early times, were obtained more than by speculation. The land-owner was the man of wealth, of influence and power. The earliest historical reference to the plow is in the Book of Job. Its evolution has been from a crooked, crotched stick, used by primitive agriculturists, to the magnificent and varied implements of this class at the present time. Of the inventors who improved the plow, since about the beginning of the present progressive century to the present time, I cannot speak at length. But in this country progress seems to have begun with the improvement of Thomas Jefferson, in 1793. The first castiron plow was invented by Charles Newbold, of Burlington county, New Jersey, and patented by him in 1797. Although he spent large sums of money in perfecting and introducing his invention, he finally abandoned the business in despair. Why? The farmers conceived the idea that the "cast-iron plow" poisoned the land, injured its fertility and promoted the growth of weeds. Similarly the advanced ideas of Tull, of Berkshire, England, in 1701-1731, were opposed and derided by his neighbor farmers, and his machines broken by his laborers in their ignorant zeal against * This paper was prepared for the National Farmers' Congress and delivered at its meeting, October 3d to 10th, 1899, at Faneuil Hall, Boston, Mass. It is published here by request of the New Jersey Delegation to the Farmers' Congress, and by resolution of the State Board of Agriculture. innovations. A similar instance occurred on a farm near Freehold, N. J., on the introduction of a mowing machine. Opposition, perse. cution and sometimes death have been the penalties paid by men in other callings, as well as in agriculture, for leading the way to a higher development of the world's thought and industrial progress. And there is prejudice still in certain quarters against improvement. At the present time there are about 2,000,000 acres of land annually turned over by the plow for crop production in the United States alone, and over $70,000,000 worth of plows annually put upon the market. Although the plow has been, from earliest times, glorified, the plowman did not receive such honors. All who were not nobles were serfs or slaves. The ruling nobles of early days did not plow, although many noble men have plowed from Elisha's time to the present. The work of the plow, as it has advanced towards perfection, has called into existence numerous other implements and machines. These also have passed through many changes, from their crude beginnings towards perfection in construction and work. Without going into details, I enumerate a few of these. The harrow has advanced from a many-pronged sappling drawn by human force to the present "crushing," "disk," "spring-tooth " and "smoothing harrows." Now, we have cultivators and weeders that do the work of many men as it was done by the old hand methods and do it so much better. Planters that have advanced from the primitive mode of scattering the seed with one hand and forking it in with a stick with the other, to the present corn and potato-planters, seed-sowers and grain-drills that work with almost marvelous skill and rapidity. Potato-diggers that lay them nicely upon the surface at the rate of ten acres per day as compared with the drag, the fork, the hoe of the earlier periods. Call to mind the primitive methods of mowing and reaping-the grass-hook and the sickle, followed by the scythe and the grain-cradle. Compare these with the present mowing machines, reapers and binders. Recall the old way of freeing the grain of the straw and chaff. The threshing floor of Arunah, which David consecrated by sacrifices thereon to Jehovah, had its counterpart in the husbandman's life for many generations after. Even yet the faithful horse is driven around the threshing-floor, in some countries, tramping out the grain, which is afterwards separated from the chaff by throwing it up in the air to be winnowed by the winds as it falls to the floor. Now, by horsepower or steam, the reaping, threshing, separating and bagging is done in one operation. Think of this in contrast with the old "poverty club" and then sigh for "good old times." Ten bushels per day was considered a good day's work by the latter method, providing the rye was good. How we used to rake the hay, after mowing the grass by hand and spreading it out with a forked stick! A hand-rake, about two feet in length—a half-dozen men and boys raking hay thus! How is it done now? The mower, the tedder, the horse-rake and the loader following each other, and the hay-fork unloading, too. One man doing from ten to thirty times as much as could be done in the old way. A few comparisons of what one man could do per day in the old way, by primitive methods, and in the new way, with improved implements and machinery, are herewith given, taken from "The Growth of Industrial Art," prepared by Hon. Benjamin Butterworth: Mark the progress in butchering and dressing stock. Call to mind the old-fashioned hog-killing on the farm (formerly the market crop was all prepared for market there), and then visit the packing-houses of Cudahy and others at Omaha, and of the Armours at Chicago. Witness the old-time methods of dairy-work and compare them. with the present cream-gathering and butter-making machinery |