18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



shaken, and the rest spoiled with the cattle and rats in the 

 barn." A contemporary resident of that colony says, in 1648, 

 "We have now going near upon a hundred and fifty ploughs," 

 and they were drawn by oxen. In 1637 there were but thirty- 

 seven ploughs in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and for 

 twelve years after the landing of the Pilgrims the farmers had 

 no ploughs, but were compelled to tear up the bushes with 

 their hands, or with clumsy hoes and mattocks. It, afterwards 

 became the custom in the Massachusetts colony, for some one 

 owning a plough to go about and do the ploughing for the fiirm- 

 ers over a considerable extent of territory , and a town sometimes 

 paid a bounty to any one who would keep a plough in repair for 

 the purpose of going about to work in this way. The' massive 

 old wooden plough required a strong team, a stout m«,u to bear 

 on, another to hold, and a third to drive. The work it did 

 was slow and laborious. The other tools were a heavy spade, 

 a clumsy wooden fork, and, later, a harrow. I have had in 

 my possession specimens of these forks, two hundred years 

 old. It is difficult to see how they could have been made do 

 very effective work. 



ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 



The ploughs used by the French settlers upon the " Ameri- 

 can bottom," in Illinois, from the time of their occupation, in 

 1682, down to the war of 1812, were made of wood, with a 

 small point of iron fastened upon the wood by strips of raw- 

 hide, the beams resting upon an axle and small wooden 

 wheels. They were drawn by oxen yoked by the horns, the 

 yokes being straight and fastened to the horns by raw-leather 

 straps, a pole extending back from the yoke to the axle. 

 These ploughs were large and clumsy, and no small plough was 

 in use among them to plough among corn till about the year 

 1815. They used carts that had not a particle of iron about 

 them. 



Among, the forms of the old wooden plough that achieved 

 something more than a local reputation during the last century 

 was that known as the "Carey plough." It was more exten- 

 sively used than any other, though its particular form varied 

 very much according to the skill of each blacksmith or wheel- 

 wright who made it. The land-side and the standard were 



