4 The Conservative.
THK VJ-OWSIIAKK AND I'KACK.
An Atldn-ss Dt'llvortMl by A. It.
Ilofore tln > National Association of AK-
rlvnltural Implement and AVlilclc Man
ufacturers at rliiliulclplila.
The plowshare and pence how inspir
ing this happy alliance this true blend
ing of the useful and beautiful ! Peace
in every mind associated with harmony
and loveliness , the white robe , the dove ,
the horn of plenty and the industrial
device that makes its enjoyment possible !
"Peace hath her victories , no less re
nowned than war , " the great poet re
minded the great commander , who , he
said :
"Guided toy faith and matchless fortitude ,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast
ploughed ,
And ou the neck of crowned fortune proud
Hast reared God's trophies , and his work
pursued"
and the ever willing , ever efficient ,
though ever modest engine of those
victories of peace , the eai'liest and most
necessary of which appears in that first
command to newly created man , "re
plenish the earth , and subdue it , " is the
homely plow.
A recent writer on agriculture has
well said "that a tolerably correct esti
mate of the progress of the arts in any
country , whether in ancient or modern
times , may be formed by ascertaining
the structure of the plow. " For the
history of the plow is the history of ag
riculture itself , and thus a chronicle of
the progress of the human race toward
material prosperity. It was spoken of
in the books of Moses , and its pictures
on the pyramids and tombs in Egypt are
nuich older. Elisha was found at the
plow when the mantle of Elijah came
"a to be thrown iipon him. "We are told ,
* " i both in the Bible and in Herodotus , of
crops that increased a hundred-fold
when the ground was well tilled , and
how Job had 500 yoke of oxen for plow
ing. The Hebrews brought their knowl
edge of agricultxii'o and skill with
the plow from Egypt. They used to let
the ground lie fallow and rest one year
in every seven , just as they rested them
selves one day in seven.
The references to the world of long
ago bring up one or two recollections.
At the head of literature stand up two
grand old poets , Homer and Hesiod ; one
ostensibly of the sword , the other of the
plow. It is remarkable , though the
volume of the first is far greater , that
there is no such loving and minute de
scription of the sword in the one , as of
the plow in the other. But it turns out
that the mightier genius is not the bai'd
of mere war , but rather of toil in its su
preme degree , as the lot of man on earth ;
and his labor closes with the picture of
wars all ended , righteousness established
and agriculture flourishing. His most per
fect man is a herdsman ; while his god
of war , like Mars , whom wo might have
expected to represent his ideal of glory ,
is painted in repulsive colox-s a murder
ous bully , and rather a cowardly one.
His favorite gods , and those who come
with most glory out of his hands , are
Pallas and Apollo , the spirits of industry
and art. But since the Greeks commit
ted the tillage of their soil to its sub
dued and enslaved natives , they , for the
most part , looked upon that pursuit with
disdain. The Romans , on the other
hand , ranked agriciilture among the
most honorable vocations , as the well-
known story of their great Cincinnatus
reminds us ; and the literature of Rome
Cato , Cicero , Virgil and Pliny is full of
pastorals and tributes to the plowman.
Some of Plug's essays on agriculture
are as good as anything wo have today.
The plows of the Romans must have
had some resemblance to ours , inasmuch
as the ancient writers speak of the
mould-board , shares , coulters and oven
of coulter shares and plow wheels ; but
there was no device for overturning the
turf. That was left for our century.
From a careful study of Roman history
it may be taken as a proverb that she
conquered no more by the sword than
by the plow ; the moment resistance was
quelled , out went the agricultural col
ony , and the new domain was incorpor
ated with the old , and thus the empire
grew. But Rome perished by the sword
she had drawn , and she lived to after
ages by the plow , for with it followed
her law and her language , with all she
had that was best and noblest.
A statute of early Britain forbids the
use of horses in tilling the ground , prob
ably for the reason that the peasants
had discovered no better way of hitch
ing the horses to their plows biit by the
tail , and that was regarded as barbarous.
Oxen were almost exclusively used
in this work until after 1500. We have
no knowledge of a plow worthy of the
name during the Dark Ages , from the
sixth to the middle of the seventeenth
centiiry , when the metal mould-board
was first introduced by Small , a Scotch
man , in 178-J not long after a fellow-
Scotchman , James Watt , perfected his
epoch-making improvement in the
steam engine. Iron-sheathed wooden
plows were first brought to this country
in 1617 and set to work in the colony of
Virginia. In 1788 Thomas Jefferson paid
great attention to this implement , be
lieving that it would prove a principal
factor in the progress and wealth of
this country. Ho made many experi
ments and wrote a number of treatises
on the subject , and to his son-in-law ,
Thomas Randolph , we owe the first
hillside or swivel plow. In 1819 Jethro
Wood of New York state manufactured
the first iron plow of the present style ,
used throughout the civilized world ,
with share , mould and landslide , and it
was one of the world's greatest inven
tions. For the name of this important
benefactor of his kind , cyclopedias and
dictionaries may bo searched in vain ,
though their pages are stuffed with
stories of men who butcher their breth
ren. Plows before Wood's day were
commonly like the oldest plows I re
member , made of wood sheathed with
iron , probably resembling those in use in
Rome 2,000 years ago.
It would not be difficult to write a vol
ume upon the subject of plows of nnni-
ous.kinds , sub-soil , jointer , double mould ,
ditching , swivel , gang , sulky and steam
plows , and fill it with reminiscences.
About forty years ago , shortly after I
commenced manufacturing , Mr. Fawlks
of Lancaster got up a steam plow which
he said was going to revolutionize plow
ing probably in somewhat the same
way as his ancestor Guy proposed revo
lutionizing the government of England.
This invention consisted of a species of
traction engine mounted on a large rol
ler to which was attached a gang of
plows. lie had it at the state fair of
Illinois in September of 1859 where he
plowed an acre in twelve minutes and
was awarded the grand prize of $3,000.
Two years ago I saw traction engines
in California pulling gangs of twenty
plows , plowing an acre in about ten
minutes.
When compared with what the plow
has accomplished for the human race ,
how empty seem the boasted triumphs
of the sword ! The wealth and prosper
ity of the Roman empire were due to
tillage , not to pillage , and Rome's long
decline may bo traced in the decline of
her plow. The improvements in this
instrument of progress , which this cen
tury brought in , have added thousands
of millions to the world's wealth , enab
ling millions to live in comfort who could
otherwise not have lived at all. Look
at the condition of the agricultural
worker two hundred years ago , before
these improvements were invented.
Even in Great Britain he commonly
lived in a one-story hovel of one room
without windows or chimney , rather like
a pig than a man. Nations progress
as the plow carves the "way. For two
thousand years no progress came to
Greece , whoso soil is still broken by a
plow of the ago of Pericles. The same
is largely true of Cuba and Spain. Ag
riculture in Spain today is far behind
the point to which the Moors developed
it 1,000 years ago. The plow has not
improved there , and the people have not
advanced. While traveling in Cuba I
saw men scratching the ground with
forked sticks , sxich as were iised by
Pharaoh's serfs 2,000 years ago. I asked
through my guide why they did not
buy our improved plows. They replied
that it would bo an insult to the mem
ory of their fathers and grandfathers
who had always scratched the ground
with sticks. To expect enlightenment
of any kind from such people is like
asking figs from thistles. In parts of
Russia the means of tillage are of the
same description. After filling an order
for improved plows some dozen years
ago I wrote to learn how the purchasers
were succeeding with thorn , The reply