12 



Report on Trials of Plows. 



having many temples devoted to her service, and one annual fes- 

 tival called the Ceralia. This festival was celebrated by matrons 

 holding burning torches in their hands, and whoever ventured to 

 appear without previous initiation was punished with death. 



This divine origin of agriculture was devoutly believed by the 

 Greeks and Romans, as well as the Egyptians; but like all other 

 false beliefs, it worked great practical injury. It was reckoned 

 impious to change the processes which had been expressly 

 revealed from heaven, lest they should appear to derogate from 

 the wisdom of Ceres, and thus incur her displeasure; which, of 

 course, was an absolute barrier to all improvement. In fact it 

 would seem that the shadow of that delusion has reached down 

 to the present day, since, in no art known to man, is it so difficult 

 to give currency to new processes as it is in agriculture. A very 

 large portion of the farmers still use implements as rude as those 

 we have already figured. In fact the Caschrom is still in use in 

 some parts of the Hebrides. 



J^lff. 8. 



In Fig. 8 we give the plow used throughout Egypt at the present 

 day, which is but a very slight improvement on the ancient imple- 

 ment represented in Fig. 2. Fig. 9 is an accurate representation 

 of a plow now in our museum at Albany, such as is almost 

 universally used in Mexico. Even in France, Spain and Italy the 

 plows used are of the most awkward kind, incapable of doing 

 good work, and excessively wasteful of power. 



The next step in improvement seems to have been the substi- 

 tution of a more decided wedge form in the plow for the trian- 

 gular sticks of an earlier age. In some cases the leading idea of 

 the plowmaker seems to have been to have the wedge act hori- 

 zontally, lifting up the earth; in others the edge was formed to 

 act laterally, pushing the slice cut off" by the point over to the 

 other side, so as to leave a free space for the next furrow. 



