64 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



with one yoke of oxen and one man, who both holds 

 and drives, which was never before, to my knowledge, 

 broken up with less than two yoke of oxen and two 

 men. My ploughmen agree that it takes one-third less 

 power to do the same work, than common ploughs 

 require. One of them, to express his approbation of 

 it, said, "that poor as he was, if another such plough 

 could not be bought he would give $100, rather than 

 not have it, had he a farm of his own." It is the best 

 plough, beyond all question, I have ever had upon my 

 farm. 



Respectfully, I am your obedient servant, 



JOSIAH QUINCY. 



In the list, from which names of New York inven- 

 tors above mentioned are taken, that of Freeborn does 

 not appear. Some of these inventors sold to other 

 persons rights to manufacture, and Freeborn may 

 have been a purchaser and not an inventor. But that 

 his plough was constructed on "Jeffersonian prin- 

 ciples," appears clearly enough in an expression used 

 in the letter enclosed, viz.: "The plough passes 

 through the ground with very little friction and with 

 much less draught than other ploughs of the same size, 

 owing, probably, to the spiral wind in the plane of the 

 mould-board." The phrase "spiral wind," though not 

 used by Mr. Jefferson or Col. Pickering, would not 

 have been rejected by either. 



It cannot be doubted that Mr. Quincy's unstinted 

 praise of the new plough took effect, and that the 

 agricultural readers of the Journal, and many of their 

 farmer neighbors, soon equipped themselves with that 

 sort of an implement, by using two of which, the same 

 number of men and oxen could plough two acres in- 

 stead of one, or one acre in half the time. 



That the stage now reached in the improvement of 



