12 JETHEO WOOD; 



The manhood home of Jethro Wood was at 

 Scipio, Cayuga County, New York, a purely 

 agricultural town, with nothing in its later 

 history to distinguish it ; but in its palmier 

 early days of the present century, it must 

 have been a nursery of invention. Roswell 

 Toulsby, Horace Pease, and John Swan, of 

 that town, each took out letters patent for im- 

 provements in plows, and that prior to the is- 

 suance of any patent to Mr. Wood. Their 

 improvements were of no practical value, and 

 played no part in the development of this 

 branch of mechanism, but their efforts serve 

 to show the state of the intellectual atmosphere 

 breathed by the man who was destined to solve 

 the knotty problem which underlies the very 

 foundation of scientific agriculture. 



Of the cotemporaries of Mr. Wood, who 

 wrought at the solution of this problem, the 

 most illustrious was Thomas Jefferson, states- 

 man, philosopher and farmer. 



