2 FARM MACHINERY 



and increased in numbers were those who had fields of 

 grain and a definite source of food. 



2. Change from hand to machine methods. When 

 people began to turn their attention to farming they 

 began to devise tools to aid them in their work. Various 

 kinds of hoes, crude plows, sickles, and scythes were 

 invented, but were practically all hand tools. Work with 

 these was necessarily very laborious and slow. The 

 hours of labor in consequence were very long, and the 

 social position of the tiller of the soil was low. He was 

 in every sense of the term "the man with the hoe." He 

 became prematurely old and bent ; his lot was anything 

 but enviable. 



For more than 3.000 years the farmers of Europe, and 

 in this country until after the Revolutionary War, used 

 the same crude tools and primitive methods as were em- 

 ployed by the Egyptians and the Israelites. In fact, it 

 has been, relatively speaking, only a few years since the 

 change from hand to machine methods took place. In 

 the Twelfth Census Report the following statement is 

 made : ''The year 1850 practically marks the close of the 

 period in which the only farm implements and machinery 

 other than the wagon, cart, and cotton gin were those 

 which, for want of a better designation, may be called 

 implements of hand production." 



McMaster, in his "History of the People of the United 

 States," says : "The Massachusetts farmer who witnessed 

 the Revolution plowed his land with the wooden bull 

 plow, sowed his grain broadcast, and when it was ripe, 

 cut it with a scythe and threshed it out on his barn floor 

 with a flail." He writes further that the poor whites of 

 Virginia in 1790 lived in log huts "with the chinks stuffed 

 with clay ; the walls had no plaster, the windows had no 

 glass, the furniture was such as they themselves had 



