THE PLOW IN AMERICA 157 



several plow bottoms held rigidly in a single frame. These 

 were more compact, each gang cutting three to six furrows, 

 but, besides being heavy to throw out of the ground, they 

 failed to adapt themselves to uneven surfaces. Combination 

 of these units into loads for the largest engines presented 

 difficulties in the way of suitable hitches. Steam-lift plows 

 solved the one difficulty, and were even more compact. They 

 were too expensive, however, and have quite largely given way 

 to hand-lift types embodying their compactness, but much 

 more simple in construction. To-day the latter stand represen- 

 tative of the highest type of agricultural implement. 



From the war club of the first true agriculturist to the steel 

 plow of to-day is a step which embraces all the history of civ- 

 ilization. From development of the human muscle, which 

 gave power to the Egyptian sarcle, to the mighty engines which 

 draw our modern gang plow is a far wider step. No less is 

 the gap between the plow factory of to-day and the laborious 

 task of the savage who first shaped a pointed weapon by rub- 

 bing one stick upon another or a stone. The history of man in 

 all ages records the utilization of the highest opportunities 

 within his grasp. The plow has advanced only as the ac- 

 cumulation of knowledge has taught what should be its shape, 

 as instruments and materials for shaping it have developed, 

 and as blind superstition and ignorant prejudice have with- 

 drawn their opposition to progress. The sarcle, refined into 

 the form still in use, affords a subject for a painting like Millet's 

 "The Spaders," or "The Man with the Hoe." In a modern 

 commonwealth the ancient breast plow, driven by a weary 

 toiler of the soil, still bears occasional aid to the sustenance of 

 mankind. But these are only the exceptional, the enforced, 

 variations from the rule. The modern plow has wrested an 

 abundance from the soil. Animals harnessed to it have freed 

 the peasant from the heaviest of all tasks, and given him 

 leisure to advance in knowledge. The world now rests in 

 confident anticipation of the farm's certain surplus. Civili- 



