86 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 



means of steel ropes drawn to and fro across the fields 

 by steam-engines. 



The plough is the most ancient horse-power tool in 

 the world, and it is the first and most important tool 

 used in tillage. For this reason it has become the 

 symbol of agriculture, and it stands as a mark on 

 the letter-heads used in all the correspondence of 

 The Chautauqua Town and Country Club. With a 

 good magnifying-glass you can look at the handsome 

 plough at the top of our Club letters, and you will 

 see on the beam of the plough the Club motto, - 

 "RESULTS." Tens of thousands of ploughs in the 

 United States are at work every year, winning wealth 

 from our soil. The results are food and crops and 

 wealth, vast beyond counting, and the like of which 

 the world never saw before. The plough is indeed 

 the symbol of our nation's wealth ; and the men who 

 guide our tens of thousands of ploughs are the best 

 ploughmen who have ever lived, because they think 

 and read, study, observe, and learn. So we too, 

 though we may many of us never use a plough, must 

 learn to respect the men who do, and, like them, seek 

 for RESULTS in work, in reading, study, observation, 

 and knowledge. 



The crooked branch from a tree, that the cave-man 

 used to stir the soil, in time became the modern 

 plough. At the same time, it appears to have still 

 survived in another form. Did you ever think that 

 the common hoe is only the cave-man's crooked stick 

 slightly improved? Here is the long branch now 



