MATEKIALS OF FARM TOOLS. 17 



the farm, were slow to recognize the possibilities of improve- 

 ment, or that their cattle, poor as they must have been at the 

 outset, continued rather to depreciate than to improve in 

 quality until sometime after the Revolution. The number 

 increased, however, as the range of pasturage or browsing 

 grounds was comparatively unlimited, so that the keeping of 

 stock may be said to have assumed some importance in the 

 older settlements, by the middle of the last century, when it 

 had become comparatively safe from molestation. 



EAKLY FARM IMPLEMENTS. 



One of the chief obstacles the early colonists had to 

 encounter, to add to the hardships of their lot in the cultiva- 

 tion of the soil, was the difficulty of procuring suitable 

 implements. A few, no doubt, were brought with them, but 

 all could not obtain them in this way, and the only metal they 

 had was made of bog-ore, and that was so brittle as to break 

 easily and put a stop to their day's work. Most of their 

 tools were made of wood, rude enough in construction, and 

 heavy of necessity, and little fit for the purpose for which 

 they were made. The process of casting steel was then 

 unknown. It was discovered in Sheffield, England, but not 

 till the middle of the last century, and then kept a secret 

 there for some years. The few rude farming tools they had 

 were for the most part of home manufacture, or made by the 

 neighboring blacksmith as a part of his multifarious business, 

 there being little idea of the division of labor, and no 

 machinery by which any particular implement could be 

 exactly duplicated. 



PLOUGHS. 



But it is recorded that as early as 1617 some ploughs were 

 set to work in the Virginia colony, for in that year the gover- 

 nor complained to the company that the colony "did suffer 

 for want of skilled husbandmen and means to set their ploughs 

 on work ; having as good ground as any man can desire, and 

 forty bulls and oxen, but they wanted men to bring them to 

 labor, and iron for the ploughs, and harness for the cattle. 

 Some thirty or forty acres we had sown with one plough, but it 

 stood so long on the ground before it was reaped it was most 



3 



