113 
AMJECKICAN AGKICULTUEIST, 
No. 147 
A PRIMITIVE PLOW. 
Engraved for the American Agriculturist 
The above beautiful engraving, from a picture 
by Le Jeune, has a double signification. Here are 
simple, innocent, smiling children, imitatingly and 
sportively drawing and guiding the cleft branch 
over the soil. Love and peace are breathed forth 
in the landscape, while a calm sky, leafy ver¬ 
dure, and a balmy stillness pervade the tranquil 
scene. The healthful countenances, and the 
well-developed limbs of the children show forth 
admirably the healthful effects of their out-door 
active exercises. Who could think of caging these 
innocents in a nursery hot-bed, or binding their 
limbs and bodies in close-fitting fashionable at¬ 
tire 1 Children are very imitative in their habits 
—even to their sports. The boys in their way 
are farmers, or mechanics, or traders; and the 
girls are house-keepers, nurses, seamstresses, 
etc. The wise, foreseeing parent may give di¬ 
rection to the future inclination and occupation of 
the child, by a little judicious fostering of the first 
sports of the little four-year-old. We believe 
there is great advantage resulting from alloting 
each child—boy or girl—a plot of ground over 
which he or she shall have entire direction and 
control, and enjoy the resulting products. A 
taste for rural pursuits will thus be early cultiva¬ 
ted. The moral advantages are incalculable. 
The child, with its own plot of ground, will scarce¬ 
ly neglect it to engage in rude play with vicious 
associates. 
A second thought carries us back to the rude 
implements of the primitive cultivators of the soil. 
The play-plow of these children is not at all un¬ 
like the first implement used for scarifying the 
earth’s surface, preparatory to sowing the seed. 
It was simply a bough of a tree with two branches 
left long for handles, while the numerous limbs 
around the main bough were cut off two or three 
inches in length and sharpened so that when drag¬ 
ged along they should break the surface. The 
next advance was to call in the assistance of 
beasts of burden to propel the implement, and 
these were attached to the plow by thongs fasten¬ 
ed to their tails. A later improvement was the for¬ 
mation of a beam and handle from a bough, with a 
single branch projecting below for a plow-share 
and point. More than four thousand years passed 
away before abetter implement was contrived. 
Wooden mold-boards, sometimes pointed with 
iron, were in general use until almost a quarter 
of the present century had elapsed. Indeed, there 
are few of us who have lived beyond half the al¬ 
lotted age of man who can not well remember 
the first introduction of iron and steel mold- 
boards, shares and points. Thirty years ago there 
were scarcely a dozen patent iron plows in ex¬ 
istence. Now they count by hundreds, and the 
shrill whistle of the Steam Plow already begins 
to reverberate over our valleys and prairies. 
With what sort of an implement and by what 
power will our children break up the soil 1 
^ - » C — - •*' 
How Long will Trees Live?..II. 
(Concluded from page 81.) 
In our last we showed that, theoretically , 
a tree might live an indefinite period. Those 
parts of a tree which carry on its life-processes 
are annually renewed; and if certain parts, (as 
the interior,) decay, other parts are augmented, 
and the tree as a whole continues to live and 
grow. So much for theory ; and we shall soon 
adduce some facts to sustain it. 
But there is another side to this question. So 
far as theory goes, the human body is the same 
in its constitution as when it lasted eight or nine 
centuries; but the stubborn fact is, that “ the days 
of our years are three-score and ten, and if by 
reason of strength they be four-score, yet is their 
strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, 
and we fly away.” We occasionally meet with 
a man whose life has been lengthened out to 
ninety or a hundred years. Nature’s laws seem 
to work regularly yet; he eats, drinks and sleeps 
about as well as ever; and no one can see why 
he may not live for an indefinite period longer. 
Yet, every body knows that this is an exception 
to the general rule. And soon, close observation 
shows that slight inroads begin to be made upon 
his constitution. He takes a little cold, or his 
digestion becomes impaired, or some other ail¬ 
ment sets in, and he suddenly dies : nature could 
hold out no longer. Theoretically, he should have 
j lived on for many years, but another law prevail¬ 
ed, and he died. So in the vegetable kingdom ; 
by theory, a tree has no assignable limit of life, 
but practically, it has. Cases of extreme longev¬ 
ity may be cited, but they are rare exceptions, 
and even these trees finally perish. 
The biography of many an old tree is like this : 
The tree grows to its allotted hight, then expands 
laterally, both in its branches and in its girth. 
After a period, it begins to die at the center. The 
rotten portion within increases faster than the 
new wood is formed outwardly. The tree, though 
now old and hollow, still looks healthy. [It rep 
resents the vigorous old gentleman of eighty 
years.] At length, the strong winds sway it 
about, and rack it violently, and a fissure is made 
somewhere in trunk or branches, into which air 
and rain soon penetrate. By and by, the decay 
of the center crops through the bark near the 
ground. [The old man takes a cold.] The leaves 
expand every Spring, but the rot in the trunk an¬ 
nually increases ; limbs decay and are blown off 
one after another, until at length the rot extends 
all along the trunk, and before many years, a gale 
prostrates the old tree upon the ground, a total 
ruin. [The aged man dies, a hundred and ten 
years old.] Now, theoretically, that tree ought 
to have lived, but another law supervened—call 
it by what name you please—and the tree suc¬ 
cumbed. 
There are several ways of ascertaining the age 
of trees. One is, by measurement of their girth 
at a fixed point near the ground ; but this is not 
perfectly reliable, as some species grow more 
rapidly than others, and among the same species, 
difference of soil and exposure produces differ- 
