2 American Economic Association [800 



better designation, may be called implements of hand 

 production." 1 This opinion is in substantial agreement 

 with that of a recent German writer. 2 



The cotton gin was not invented until nearly twenty 

 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, 

 and the wagons and carts of that time were crude 

 affairs in comparison with those of the present day 3 

 " The Massachusetts farmer who witnessed the revolu- 

 tion plowed his land with the wooden bull-plow, sowed 

 his grain broadcast, and, when it was ripe, cut it with a 

 scythe, and thrashed it out on his barn floor with a 

 flail." 4 The poor whites of Virginia, in 1790, lived in 

 log huts " with the chinks stuffed with clay ; the walls 

 had no plaster ; the windows had no glass ; the fur- 

 niture was such as they had themselves made. Their 

 grain was thrashed by driving horses over it in the open 

 field. When they ground it they used a rude pestle and 

 mortar, or, placed in the hollow of one stone, they beat 

 it with another." 5 



" In parts of Pennsylvania, in Delaware, the eastern 

 shores of Maryland and Virginia and, we believe, in 

 Rhode Island grain was generally trodden out by oxen 



'Twelfth Census, Agriculture I, p. xxix. 



2 " Andererseits ist der laudwirtschaftlichen Maschinenentwickelung 

 vor dem neunzehnten Jahrhundert wenig Bedeutung beizumessen, da 

 ihre praktische Anwendung mit ihr nicht Hand in Hand gegangen 

 war. Daher kommt es auch, dass die Maschinen der vorigen Jahr- 

 hunderte alle mehr oder weniger unvollkommen blieben. Die 

 Anwendung landwirtschaftlicher Maschinen erfolgte erst in grosseren 

 Masstab urn die vierziger Jahre dieses Jahrhunderts. " Bensing : 

 Einfluss der landwirtschaftlichen Maschinen, p. 16. 



3 Mass. Agr. Report for 1853, p. 422. 



*McMaster: History of the People of the United States, Vol I., 

 p. 1 8. 



6 McMaster : History of the People of the United States, Vol. II, 

 p. 14- 



