126 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 



lives ; sorest, because in following the plow among 

 the stumps of the "clearing" the plow point would 

 catch on the long elm roots, the ends of which 

 would give away through the force of pulling 

 horses, relieving the tension, as it were, allow- 

 ing the roots to fly back and whack him over the 

 shins, which not' only led to a copious flow of tears, 

 but also to a copious flow of language, not such, 

 however, that is used by a pious, Methodist dea- 

 con, and which stimulated dreams of a city life. 



In the author's day the breaking plow has evo- 

 luted from the walking two-horse plow, to the 

 riding single and gang plows and the modern 

 tractor plows, pulling their three, six, eight, twelve 

 or more, bottoms. 



The ancient husbandman scratched his soil with 

 a crooked stick, because he had or knew no better 

 method of preparing his soil for growing crops. 

 In the progress of time there was evolution in the 

 art of building plows, just as there has been evo- 

 lution in other things. We smile when we look 

 at the pictures of plows used by our ancestors, 

 and, no doubt, future generations will do the same 

 thing when they look at the pictures of our most 

 modern plows. 



In the times of Nero, in parts of the world de- 

 voted to agriculture, it was a common sight to 

 see a wretched ass and an old woman hitched to 

 their crude plows, preparing the soil the best they 

 could with such means for the seed bed, which was 

 nothing more than a slight stirring of the soil. 

 And even in this day there are countries in Eu- 

 rope in which plowing is done by the crude method 

 of a straight piece of wood with an iron point to 



