FARM MANAGEMENT 85 



Vehicles. At the beginning of the last century carts were 

 used on the farms and chaises on the roads. Stagecoaches were used 

 on the main roads of travel, and a few wagons were found here and 

 there. Carts were more convenient for use with oxen on the farms. 

 For many years discussion was active as to the comparative economy 

 of oxen and horses for farm use, and wagons came in with the in- 

 creased use of horses and the improvement of the country roads. 

 Buggies and trotting horses grew up together. Light one-horse wag- 

 ons first appeared in Connecticut about 1830, but it was not until 

 1840 or later that they became common enough not to attract notice 

 when seen on the roads. 



Plows. In 1637 there were but 37 plows in the colony of Massa- 

 chusetts Bay. Twelve years after the landing of the Pilgrims the 

 farmers around Boston had no plows, and were compelled to break 

 up the ground and prepare for cultivation with their hands and with 

 rude and clumsy hoes and mattocks. It was the custom in that part 

 of the country, even to a much later period, for anyone owning a 

 plow to do the plowing for the inhabitants over a considerable extent 

 of territory. A town often paid a bounty to anyone who would buy 

 and keep in repair a plow for the purpose of going about in this way. 



The first patent for a plow was issued in 1797 to Charles New- 

 bold, of New Jersey. It was the first cast iron plow ever made, but 

 the farmers entertained great prejudice against it, believing cast iron 

 would poison, the land. It was not until 1870 that any marked im- 

 provement came in the manufacture of plows, when the Oliver chilled 

 plow came on the market. 



Then invention followed invention until now there are the sulky 

 plow, gang plow, plows combined with harrows, cultivators and seed 

 drills, side hill plows, vineyard plows, sub-soil plows, double land- 

 side plows, and lastly, the greatest of all, the steam gang plow com- 

 bined with a seeder and harrow, which has reduced the time required 

 for human labor (in plowing, seeding and harrowing) to produce 

 a bushel of wheat from 32.8 minutes in 1830 to 2.2 minutes at the 

 present time, and has reduced the cost of human and animal labor in 

 plowing, seeding and harrowing per bushel of wheat from four cents 

 to one cent. 



Corn Planters. Hundreds of patents have been issued for corn 

 planters. The earlier ones were adjustments to the hoe, which permit- 

 ted the release of grains of corn when the hoe was struck into the 

 ground ; then came the hand planter, and the next step was the horse 

 drill. Next came the idea of marking rows in both directions with a 

 drag. A long beam with pins in it was dragged both ways across the 

 field by horses, and then the farmer would go along with the hand 

 planter and plant the corn at the intersection of the rows. Still, again, 

 followed an improvement, and this was the corn planter which 

 planted two rows at one time with the rows running in both direc- 

 tions. A man sat on the machine, and, at every point where thie drag 

 had crossed at right angles, he moved a lever that dropped the corn, 

 which was covered by wheels that turned and pressed down the soil 

 upon the seed. The check rower followed ; it was a simple implement, 



