62 $HE BOOK: 01* WHEAT 



Twelve years after the landing of the Pilgrims, the farmers 

 about Boston had no plows. The first ones used by French 

 settlers in Illinois were of wood with a small point of iron tied 

 on with straps of rawhide. The oxen were yoked to them by 

 the horns. This method of hitching was rivaled only in 

 Saxony and Ireland, where the horses were fastened to the 

 plow with their tails. An attempt was made to abolish this 

 practice in Ireland by act of Parliament in 1634. Arthur 

 Young (1741-1820) mentioned it in his time, however, and 

 Gibbons maintained that it was still to be found in remote 

 parts of Ireland as late as 1896. 



In England, from one to eight oxen were used in the eleventh 

 century, while four horses or oxen were usual in the seven- 

 teenth century. The first plow in California (about 1835) was 

 a crooked branch with an iron toe. On the whole, the American 

 form before 1767 was practically the same as that used by the 

 Romans before the Christian era, and this type was still found 

 in Europe in 1867. It was the only agricultural implement of 

 France in the eleventh century, and of Sicily in 1863. In 

 southern Greece many plows similar to those of the age of 

 Pericles (450 B. C.) are still being used. Many of those in 

 Russia are equally primitive, while the Spanish, South French 

 and Italian forms resemble the Roman type. 



There was little improvement in the plow during the middle 

 ages, perhaps largely on account of legislative restraint. Many 

 popular prejudices also existed. In England, for example, after 

 the farmers hr.d experimented with iron plows of good con- 

 struction, they concluded that the iron made the weeds grow; 

 and in America iron plows were supposed to poison the soil 

 and to prevent the growth of crops. It was not until the end 

 of the seventeenth century that plows began to be improved. 

 The moldboard was then made of iron and steel and given its 

 proper form. While the plow was always essentially a wedge- 

 shaped instrument forced through the soil to loosen it, these 

 improvements perfected it so that the draft was reduced by 

 one-third and the implement was also much more complete in 

 its operation on the topsoil, which it gradually loosened, raised 

 and completely turned over to one side. Coulters were known 

 in England at least as early as the eleventh century. Fitzher- 

 bert writes of different kinds of plows for different soils in 



