I' V 

 INVENTOR OF THE MODERN PLOW. 43 



peculiar trait in the Romanoff family to ad- 

 mire liberty in the abstract, however absolute 

 in practice. Sharing the prevailing good 

 will toward Russia, Mr. Wood conceived this 

 happy thought of making a truly substantial 

 contribution to Cossack civilization, a civiliza- 

 tion ever ready, with all its crudeness, to adopt 

 foreign improvements. That gift, in one 

 point of view slight, proved of great benefit 

 to Russian agriculture. It is impossible to 

 state the extent of actual advantage derived by 

 Russia from that truly imperial gift. It was 

 in effect giving to that country, second only 

 to the United States in area of tillage, in pro- 

 portion to population, the free use of the per- 

 fected plow. In an old copy of the New 

 York Tribune, in its palmy days of Horace 

 Greeley and Solon Robinson, the tale of the 

 Plow and the Ring is unfolded. It runs thus : 

 "During the year, 1820, Jethro Wood 

 sent one of his plows to Alexander I, 



