MISCELLANEOUS 



287 



FARM TOOLS 



Use of Tools. Agriculture, you know, cannot be carried on 

 without tools. The poorest farmer has his hoe and plow and grain 

 blade. On the best farms there is an arr.ay of tools plows and 

 harrows to prepare soil ; planters, drills, and transplanters to put in 

 crops; cultivators, horse hoes, and weeders to till them; diggers, 

 mowers, reapers, harvesters, huskers, shredders, threshers to harvest 



IMPLEMENTS USED IN PRODUCING THE CROP OF CORN ILLUSTRATED ON PAGE 142 



products and prepare them for use. Many of these are recent in- 

 ventions; most of them have been made or perfected by Americans. 



The Plow. The first agricultural tools were few in number and 

 simple in form. Consider, for instance, the plow which is the 

 oldest of all. It was made first of the crooked branch of a tree, 

 pointed and hardened by fire. This was drawn by hand. Then it 

 was adapted to draft animals, such as oxen and horses. By 

 degrees it took its present shape, but it was still made of wood. 

 Then the wooden parts were protected by wrought iron. 



About the end of the eighteenth century, a cast-iron plow- 

 share, or point, was invented. At first American farmers would 



