XIII 

 EARLY HISTORY OF THE PLOW 



THE plow is our oldest agricultural implement. In- 

 deed, systematic agriculture began when man first 

 took his crude war club and with it stirred the 

 soil. The shape of the primitive plow suggested the 

 first letter of the alphabet. The Book of Job is the oldest 

 part of the Old Testament, yet this work begins: "And 

 there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were 

 plowing and the asses feeding beside them; and the Sabeans 

 fell upon them and took them away; yea they have slain the 

 servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped 

 alone to tell thee." Ancient monuments, dating back 

 forty centuries, bear sculptured representations of the plow. 

 Ulysses was plowing among the sands of the shore at Ithaca 



'when he feigned madness 

 before the messengers of 

 Agamemnon. Virgil de- 

 scribes the plow used by 

 Cincinnatus, and Horace, 

 warning the Roman Repub- 

 lic against encroachment of 

 From an Egyptian monument, 3000, B. C. the nobles' fish ponds upon 



the peasants' fields, writes 



in his Ode, ''only a few more acres are left for the plow." 

 Ceres, the patron Goddess of Agriculture in Greek mythology, 

 inspired Triptolemus to invent the plow at the time she taught 

 him the art of husbandry and placed him in charge of her work 



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