186 History of Hingham. 



FARM IMPROVEMENTS. 



It is doubtful if any great improvements were made on the 

 farms during the first fifty or seventy-five years ; but when the an- 

 nual Indian fires were stopped, the whole country rapidly became 

 covered with bushes, and in a few years with trees, except where 

 cultivation was maintained ; so quite early in the eighteenth cen- 

 tury the farmer was compelled to enter in earnest upon the work 

 of clearing the land. When the trees were removed, he found 

 it necessary to dig out the rocks, and inclose each field cleared 

 with a stone wall. Most of the stone walls that are now seen in 

 the eastern and southern and a portion of the western part of the 

 town were probably built between 1725 and 1825. Many of 

 the farmers who lived during this period had what at that 

 time were considered comfortable homes, and kept a large stock 

 of cattle ; so they were in a condition to improve their farms by 

 clearing them of trees and rocks, and inclosing them with stone 

 walls. During the latter part of the last century and the first 

 part of the present, the work of draining some of the low lands 

 commenced. This work was done on small meadows by indi- 

 vidual efforts, and on large meadows, where there were many 

 owners, by organized efforts. 



FARM IMFLEMENTS. 



Very few realize how rudely constructed were the farm imple- 

 ments which the first settlers had to use. The hoe was a heavy 

 piece of iron, roughly forged out, and probably weighed as much 

 as four of the hoes used at the present time. The shovel and 

 spade were forged out of iron with, in some cases, a small piece 

 of steel welded to the cutting edge. The manure-fork had tines 

 much heavier than the tines of our present garden-forks, and the 

 pitchforks had short tines, almost as large as one's finger. The 

 old scythe used by the first settlers was forged out of iron, with 

 a strip of steel welded on the edge ; but as early as 1649 Joseph 

 Jenks invented a new form of scythe by welding a thick piece of 

 iron to a thin piece of steel, and in 1656 got a patent for it. But 

 for nearly two hundred years the scythe was a heavy and a rudely 

 constructed implement, weighing from two to three times what 

 it will weigh to-day. The scythe-snath was little more than a 

 crooked stick, cut in the woods by the farmer, and smoothed by 

 taking the bark off. The rake was made by the farmer, and was 

 twice as heavy as the hand-rakes of the present time. The axe 

 was heavy and roughly forged. 



The plough was but little more than a crooked stick, with an 

 iron on the point, for nearly two hundred years after the town was 

 settled. The first cast-iron ploughs were unknown to the Hing- 

 ham farmer until the beginning of the present century. Four- 



