History of the Plow. 



CHAPTER 11. 



THE mSTORY OF THE PLOW IN EUROPE. 



It is impossible to say who was the first inventor of the plow. 

 The earliest records speak of it as a well-known instrument of 

 husbandry, and we are therefore left to conjecture respecting the 

 origin of the mellowing of land to fit it for the reception of seeds 

 and the growth of grain. 



The inhabitants of the earth must have observed, at a very 

 early period of its history, that ground which had been accident- 

 ally loosened bore a more abundant harvest; the rooting of hogs 

 must have given them sufficient examples of this, if nothing else 

 had suo-wested it to them. 



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The next step, after they had become fairly conscious of this 

 fact, would be to imitate it at such places and at such times as 

 experience had shown them was most desirable. Probably a 

 sliarpened stick would be the most likely instrument to suggest 

 itself to their minds; then they would widen the end of it, sharp- 

 ening it to a chisel edge with a view of making more rapid work. 



Man in the hunter, and even in the pastoral state, is very averse 

 to bodily labor. The little inventive power that he possesses 

 will surely be directed to the making of contrivances which will 

 i\'le:ise him from bodily toil. While working the land with his 

 sharpened ,s(ick, with his mind intent upon some mode of amelio- 

 ratinof his condilion, he sees the bulls and cows g-razino^ on the 

 hillsides around him; they are stronger than he, and he desires to 

 subjugate their strength to his service. Seeing a forked stick in 

 his path, a bright thought dawns upon his mind; he will tie the 

 long end of a stick to the horns of a bull, w^hile the short end will 

 run into the ground and stir it much faster than he could do it with 

 sharpened stick, and Avith much less labor to himself. He tries his 

 the experiment, and crios, Eureka! or some barbarous equivalent 

 for that Greek word. The germ of the plow is at length invented. 



The process by which the first man arrived at this result may 

 be pure conjecture; but that the forked stick was the origin of 

 the plow, we have the most ample evidence. 



