64 THE LAND WE LIVE ON 



trained men is acutely felt. Engineering is of further 

 great importance in the dairying industry for the con- 

 struction of milking machines, separators, pasteurisers, 

 churns, butter workers, refrigerating machines, etc. 



With reference to implements, let me give a short 

 history of the Plough, one of the most necessary implements 

 of a farm, used for the breaking up and turning over of the 

 soil, to replace the slow and laborious hand digging. The 

 use of the plough dates back almost to the earliest history 

 of mankind, but the implements used in early times were, 

 as a rule, primitive and clumsy, chiefly constructed of 

 wood. Ploughing with shares shod with iron and bronze 

 is mentioned in the Old Testament. Ploughs witli wheels 

 were also used by the ancient Greeks, but none of the old 

 ploughs actually turned over a furrow. The modern 

 plough, with a mould-board to turn over the soil, seems to 

 have been invented in the Netherlands in the 17th century. 

 Up to the middle of the 10th century the mould-boards 

 were generally made of wood. Since that time great 

 improvements in the construction of ploughs have been 

 made, and different types are used for specific purposes. 

 A particulai'ly great advance was the introduction of thtj 

 American Gang and Sulky plough, and the newest type 

 of disc plough, so admirably Miited for many of our clashes 

 of soil. In other implements, such as harrows, rollers, 

 cultivators, etc., the ingenuity of the mechanic has made 

 many improvements. As early as the year 1858. in an 

 article in the Joiunal of A(,rici.diure, th3 necessity of the 

 application of Steam ploughs to agcicilture was strongly 

 advocated in Great Britain. Paradoxical as it seems, 

 Ruskin in his idealistic social democracy emphatically 

 condemns the employment of steam in agriculture. In 

 the year 1618 patents for engines to plough the ground 

 without horses or oxen were taken out by David Ramsay 

 and Thomas Wildgoose, followed by other patents for 

 the depositing of seeds and manures, which, however, 

 the wags of that time considered regular- " wild-goose 

 schemes." 



Towards the close of the 17th century, Francis Moore 

 took out patents for a machine to go without horses, to 

 be applicable to ploughing and harrowing, and to all 

 branches of husbandry. So sanguine was he of his results 



