THE ESSENTIALS OF AGRICULTURE 



FIG. i a. The reap hook 



By means of this hook a 

 few heads of grain were 

 harvested at each stroke 



FIG. i b. The cradle 



The cradle made it possi- 

 ble for an armful of grain 

 to be cut at one stroke 



principles underlying these practices, to know why one prac- 

 tice is better than another, or to develop practices which are 

 better than those now in use, n it is necessary to have 

 some knowledge of almost /r every science now known 



to man. 



2. How science and 

 invention have helped 

 agriculture. Although 

 agriculture is the old- 

 est and most important 

 of our industries, it was 

 among the last to re- 

 ceive attention from in- 

 ventors and scientists or to profit by their discoveries. The era 

 of labor-saving machinery may be said to have had its beginning 

 about a century ago 

 with the invention 

 of the iron plow. 



As late as the 

 middle years of the 

 nineteenth century, 

 farming was per- 

 formed mostly by 

 hand, and the world 

 had made little prog- 

 ress in agriculture. 

 The plow and the 

 harrow were almost 

 the only implements 

 drawn by horses. 

 Corn was dropped 

 in furrows by hand, 

 a practice which the 

 early settlers had 

 learned from the 

 Indians. Wheat was 



FIG. 2. The reaping machine 



This is a model of the first successful reaper, which was 

 invented by Cyrus H. McCormick in 1831. In its first 

 trial the reaper was ordered out of the field because it 

 " rattled the heads off the wheat." A friendly neighbor 

 of the inventor offered his wheat field as a place in which 

 " to give the machine a fair trial," and it cut grain suc- 

 cessfully for five hours. For the first time " grain was cut 

 with horses." But the machine and its inventor were dis- 

 credited. The feeling of the neighborhood was well ex- 

 pressed by an old woman who said, " It is a smart curious 

 sort of thing, but it won't ever come to much." It was 

 ten years before the inventor found a buyer for one of 

 his epoch-making machines 



