490 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



another " plowing " is attempted. The periods of cultivation are too 

 short to break down the fibrous roots of grasses and other plants in 

 the soil, so that very little erosion can take place. In favorable 

 locations the system is permanent, and there is nothing to show how 

 long it has been in operation or how many times the sod has been 

 turned. Uncounted generations have lived in the highlands, and as 

 much labor may have been applied to plowing with the taclla as in 

 building the walls, terraces, artificial lands, and aqueducts for the 



more striking system 

 of agriculture that 

 was developed in the 

 intermediate vallej^s. 

 That northern 

 Europe may have 

 passed through a 

 stage corresponding 

 to the foot-plow ag- 

 riculture of Peru is 

 suggested by the sur- 

 vival of a similar im- 

 plement in the He- 

 brides and along the 

 west coast of the 

 Scotch Highlands. 

 The Gaelic n a m e, 

 caschrom, is ex- 

 plained as a com- 

 pound of cas, foot, 

 and chrom, crooked, 

 and is defined in the 

 Standard Dictionary 

 as " a highland pick 

 or bog-hoe for stony ground. Called also foot-plow and crook-spade." 

 As described and figured by Mitchell 1 the caschrom is essentially simi- 

 lar to the taclla, in spite of several differences in detail, such as a 

 longer point, a more distinct curve near the base of the handle, and 

 the lack of a separate hand rest, in addition to the foot rest. The 

 mechanical principle is the same, the use of the weight of the body in 

 breaking the soil. It might be said of the taclla, as of the primitive 

 European implement, " the work which the caschrom does is neither 

 contemptible in quantity nor quality, and there has gone brain to its 

 contrivance." 



The Peruvian foot-plow agriculture may be said to have had a 

 very important relation to the present agriculture of northern Europe, 



1 The Past in the Fresent, p. 113. 



Fig. 1.— The caschrom or foot-plow of the Hebrides, from Mitchell's 

 " The Past in the Present," page 113. 



