a56 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



wheat, any more than there is why he should not grow his own 

 grass, except the mere matter of calculation in dollars and 

 cents, whether he can afford to buy the raw material out of 

 which flour is made instead of buying the flour. You certain- 

 ly cannot afford to grow weeds and buy flour. 



Why is it that farmers never think of these things, and make 

 the dollar and cent calculations ? It is owing to a wilful de- 

 termination not to let the light of science shine upon their 

 minds, to teach themselves a wiser mode of cultivating the 

 earth, or using such means of improvement as experience has 

 taught other men is more profitable than the ways of our 

 ancestors. 



It is surprising how slow farmers are to change. There are 

 thousands of ploughs in use this day in this country, more rude 

 and inefficient than the original pattern of Carey. In fact they 

 are but a small advance upon the old Egyptian plough described 

 by Stephens, drawn by an old woman and a jackass harnessed 

 together. With all due deference to the historian's classifica- 

 tion, I think the jackass was at the plough handle. Half of the 

 cotton fields of this country are ploughed with a small piece of 

 iron fastened to a rough stick of wood stuck into a short beam, 

 upon the sides of which are fastened the handles ; the whole so 

 light that a boy ten years old could carry it upon his shoulder 

 all day. Drawn by one small mule, it roots a little furrow into 

 a loose soil, an inch or two deep ; and that is scraped into a 

 i^idge, upon which the cotton is planted. Corn ground is pre- 

 pared in the same way, by the same rude implement. But 

 there are ruder modes of cultivation than this ; for there are 

 many plantations in South Carolina and Georgia, where no 

 plow is ever used. The work is all done by hoes. Not such 

 beautiful light articles as are manufactured by the Bay State 

 Tool Company in this town, but great clumsy tools, with han- 

 dles big enough and long enough for a fence stake. On many 

 of the rice plantations the grain and straw are carried upon 

 the negroes' heads, and the grain threshed with clubs upon tlie 

 ground, and the chaff blown out in the free winds of heaven. 

 Slavery is called a " patriarchal institution." In one sense it 

 is ; for the labor is done in the same primitive style, upon some 

 of the plantations, that it was when Abraham was a patriarch 

 in Palestine. 



