SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 85 



still more primitive sickle. The cradle, however, was a relatively 

 ne\\ invention, being a modification of the scythe, which had 

 been used for centuries in mowing grass. The addition of the 

 frame and " fingers " to the old-fashioned scythe, together 

 with a few changes in the handle to restore the balance, made 

 it into a so-called cradle and adapted it to the reaping of grain. 

 But the sickle or reaping hook had been in use for thousands 

 of vears. Our younger readers may understand how recently 

 this primitive tool went out of use from the fact that there are 

 men now living (1911) who have reaped wheat with it in the 

 United States. It is still in use in oriental countries and in 

 some parts of Europe. 



( jrain was still threshed with a flail in 1833, or trodden out 

 by horses and oxen, as it had been in ancient Egypt or Baby- 

 lonia. Hay was mown with a scythe and raked and pitched by 

 hand. Corn was planted and covered by hand and cultivated 

 with a hoe. By 1866 every one of these operations was done 

 by machinery driven by horse power, except in the more back- 

 ward sections of the country. The increased use of farm 

 machinery also helped the horse to displace the ox as a draft 

 animal, the former being much better suited than the latter 

 to the drawing of these improved implements. 



Slaves in the South performed the same function as machinery 

 in the North. This transformation of agricultural work was con- 

 fined mainly to the North, where free labor prevailed. Though 

 cotton production increased very rapidly during this period, 

 being six times as great in 1860 as it was in 1830, this con- 

 dition of affairs was the result mainly of an increase in the culti- 

 vated area and not of any striking improvement in the machinery 

 and methods of cultivation. By spreading rapidly westward 

 through the Gulf States the cotton industry grew by leaps and 

 bounds. However, only a small fraction of the land in the cot- 

 ton states was actually in cotton. It was estimated that at the 



