ORIGIN OF THE PLOW AND WHEEL-CARRIAGE. 449 



want of tillage. The turning-point in the history of agriculture seems 

 to be not the first thought of planting, but the pi-actical beginning by 

 a tribe settled in one spot to assist nature by planting a patch of 

 ground round their huts. Not even a new implement is needed. 

 Wandering tribes already carry a stick for digging roots and unearth- 

 ing burrowing animals, such as the katta of the Australians, with its 

 point hardened in the fire (Fig. 1), or the double-ended stick which 



Fig. 1. Australian "Katta." 



Dobrizhoffer (" Abipones," part ii, chap, xiii) mentions as cai-ried by 

 the Abipone women to dig up eatable roots, knock down fruits or dry 

 branches for fuel, and even, if need were, break an enemy's head with. 

 The stick which dug up wild roots passes to the kindred use of plant- 

 ing, and may be reckoned as the primitive agricultural implement. It 

 is interesting to notice how the Hottentots in their husbandry break 

 up the ground with the same stone-weighted stick they use so skill- 

 fully in root-digging or unearthing animals (J. G. Wood, "Natural 

 History of Man," vol. i, p. 2.54.) The simple pointed stake is often 

 mentioned as the implement of barbaric husbandry, as when the Kuru- 

 bars of south India are described as with a sharp stick digging up 

 spots of ground in the skirts of the forest, and sowing them with ragy 

 (Buchanan, "Journey through Mysore, etc.," in Pinkerton, vol. viii, 

 p. 707) ; or where it is mentioned that the Bodo and Dhimal of north- 

 east India, while working the ground with iron bills and hoes, use a 

 four-foot two-pointed wooden staff for a dibble (B. H. Hodgson, 

 "Aborigines of India," p. 181). The spade, which is hardly to be 

 reckoned among primitive agi'icultural imj)lements, may be considered 

 as improved from the digging-stick by giving it a flat, paddle-like end, 

 or arming it with a broad, pointed metal blade, and afterward provid- 

 ing a foot-step (see the Roman spade in Smith's " Dictionary of Greek 

 and Roman Antiquities," s. v. "pala"). In the Hebrides is to be seen 

 a curious implement called caschrom, a kind of heavy bent spade with 

 an iron-shod point, which has been set down as a sort of original plow 

 (Rau, " Geschichte des Pflugs," p. 16 ; Macculloch, " Western Islands," 

 Plate 30) ; but its action is that of a spade, and it seems out of the line 

 of development of the plow. To trace this, we have to pass from the 

 digging-stick to the hoe. 



All implements of the nature of hoes seem derived from the pick 

 or axe. Thus the New Caledonians are said to use their wooden picks 

 both as a weapon and for tilling the ground (Klemm, " Culturwissen- 

 schaft," part ii, p. 78). The timet, or Maori hoe (Fig. 2), from R. Tay- 

 lor's " New Zealand and its Inhabitants," p. 423, is a remarkable curved 

 wooden implement in one piece. It is curious that of all this class of 

 agricultural implements the rudest should make its appearance in 

 VOL. XVIII. 29 



