74 Old Days on the Farm 



rows. I 'd decided that I 'd be a hero of the plough, 

 that is, that I 'd win prizes at the township, county 

 and, perhaps, provincial ploughing matches. 



SOME GBEAT MEN WHO PLOUGHED 



Right here let me set down a word about the 

 plough, because to me it is at once the most neces- 

 sary of all agricultural devices that God gave 

 inspiration to the heart of man to devise. To be 

 a first-class, skilled ploughman is to have reached 

 the acme of usefulness — the high point of civilisa- 

 tion. Those chaps that brandish the sword, faugh ! 

 they wouldn't handle them long if there weren't a 

 multitude with a grip on the plough handles. It 

 is not definitely known who made the first plough 

 but likely our Father Adam tickled Mother Earth 

 ■with some sort of ploughing device, and all down 

 through the ages it has held sway. And don't 

 forget, please, that there have been some mighty 

 big men in the world's affairs who ploughed. 



There's Cincinnatus who left large and well- 

 indented footprints on the pages of history, and 

 after whom those pork-packing Americans named 

 a big city ; Oliver Cromwell gathered many of his 

 cleverest lieutenants from the furrowed fields; 

 Robert Burns ploughed, and sang as he ploughed, 

 songs that go ringing and rippling adown the 

 grooves of time; Abraham Lincoln, whose figure 

 looms up on the horizon like a Colossus astride the 

 world — ^mighty, big man Abe and he ploughed with 



