CHAPTER XX 



TILLAGE TOOLS: WHAT THEY ARE FOR; HOW TO 

 USE THEM 



One of the most expensive things a man can do is to 

 move dirt. 



No tool has ever been invented that moves so great 

 quantities of soil for so little money as the plow. No 

 farm implement is more in use, nor is any more essential, 

 yet Professor Roberts declares that in America plowing 

 is the least understood and the most imperfectly per- 

 formed operation in connection with our preparation of 

 land for crops. 



We know how to plow, but how few of us really know 

 when and why to plow. The only reasons why people 

 used to plow were to get crops in and to kill the weeds. 

 It is no wonder to me that at one time people hated to 

 plow. With primitive tools it was hard work ; and it, too, 

 was slow work. 



The first plow was a sharpened stick. The first plow 

 was the sharpened stick. But man is lazy : he soon aban- 

 dons this most primitive of all forms of tillage, selects a 

 forked stick, ties it to the horns of a bull, and makes the 

 animal do most of the work. 



Thousands of plows have been invented since this early 

 type, but there is no change in the principle. The motive 

 power has changed : the long end of the forked stick has 

 been succeeded by a beam of finished wood or steel ; the 

 short end has been metamorphosed into a chilled steel 

 point and moldboard ; the rough hand knot has been sup- 

 planted by curving handles or a driver's scat; but for all 



