1882.] TOOLS, IMPLEMENTS, ETC. 317 



culture be continued in this State. It will continue, and that means 

 that it will go on and be profitable, it will adapt itself to any 

 amount of western competition, and how to best do this is the 

 problem, on each and every farm in the State. 



Until these latter years, the history of nations has been mostly the 

 story of its rulers, and its great men, and not of its laborers in the 

 fields; of its wars and its conquests, and not of its industries; and 

 particularly not of its agriculture. But of late years, the history of 

 this industry has become one of especial interest because of its 

 peculiar relations to the history of human progress. We get our 

 earliest glimpses oE it in Egypt. Men have lately learned to read 

 the hieroglyphics, and we have a pretty clear idea of the agricul- 

 ture of that fertile valley from very remote times. There are 

 abundant pictures on their monuments, and in their writings, so 

 that we know the conditions and methods of their agriculture, of 

 a period long before Abraham was born, and a thousand years 

 before Moses wrote, as well as we do that of Europe during the 

 middle ages. From that time down to about a hundred years ago, 

 there was essentially no progress in this art, or at most too little 

 to be of any account. The preparation of the soil, the sowing of 

 the seed, the cultivation of the crop, the methods of harvesting, 

 threshing, cleaning, and storing, were as complete, as exceTlent, and 

 indeed essentially the same that they were three thousand or four 

 thousand years later. And the tools and implements about the 

 same. Why this was so, I need not here repeat; suf&ce it to say, 

 that the art, without improving as a whole, modified itself in each 

 coimtry, in accordance with the law of adaptation spoken of, and 

 was ready to start forward so soon as the social, political, and intel- 

 lectual conditions of Christendom favored, and about a hundred 

 years ago, a combination of political events and intellectual move- 

 ments took place in Western Europe, and Eastern America, which 

 has brought about the wonderful changes I have spoken of. The 

 first hundred and fifty years in the history of this commonwealth 

 was under the old condition of things. ^ 



Then most of the food had to be grown near the place of its con- 

 sumption for land transportation, for any considerable distance, 

 was out of the question. Each district had to grow most of the 

 grain for its bread, or go without. Then a larger variety of crops 

 were grown on each farm than now, we had then to grow all that 

 we now grow, and many others. Flax, hemp, dye stuffs, etc., etc., 

 were needed for the small local manufacturers, and for the raanufac- 



