CHAPTER XXXVII 

 FARM MACHINERY 



By PROF. J. B. DAVIDSON, Professor of Agricultural Engineering, 

 Iowa State College 



391. Progress in Agriculture owes much to the intro- 

 duction of machine methods for doing hand labor. When 

 the savage began to plant seeds with a sharp stick in- 

 stead of depending on wild nature, the idea was certainly 

 a progressive one. When he learned that destroying the 

 weeds that came up with those seeds would add to the 

 quantity and the certainty of the harvest, he ceased to 

 be a savage. Still again, when he learned to prepare 

 the ground and cultivate his crops, civilization was 

 well established. "Civilization begins and ends with the 

 plow," and yet the plow remained a crude wooden tool 

 until within comparatively recent times. 



392. Tillage Tools were not noticeably improved 

 until chemists and botanists began to study the soil and 

 formed a theory about the relation of the soil to the 

 plant. Machines are not invented until the need for 

 them is recognized. The ideas about the relation of the 

 plant to the soil given in modern books would have 

 been wondrous strange to our great - grandparents. 

 McMaster* tells us that "The Massachusetts farmer 

 who witnessed the Revolution, plowed his land with a 

 wooden bull-plow, sowed his grain broadcast, and, when 

 it was ripe, cut it with a scythe and thrashed it out on 

 his barn floor with a flail." These implements were 



^History of the People of the United States. 



(271) 



