tion and Development of Swine Introduc-ing and breeding in Ohio is one of continual improvement and advancement. The factors of selection and judicial breeding have been the most potent in the production of our improved breeds of hogs to-day. What breed or breeds of cattle, or sheep or horses have been produced from such mongrel stock? We are proud of all these that have been developed but we are just as proud of our swine, which choice animals and breeds have been produced through the aid of but little imported stock. CHAPTER XI INTRODUCTION AND IMPROVEMENT OF FARM IMPLEMENTS AND MACHINERY Now life was put into With the approaching completion of the Ohio canal, a great activity was taking place in converting the forests into waving. fields of grain. Agriculture was unsettled until 1832, when canal navigation was begun, and so great an impulse was given, the effect was felt for a long time. Improved farm implements now resulted as a necessity. Before the number was few because not needed. the work. A market was obtained and the call left unfilled. A period of improved machinery set in. The old wooden mouldboard plow was being superseded by the cast-iron mouldboard in 1825, and similar progress was taking place in all other branches of agriculture. The demand of the market was for wheat, and soon the lands were being stripped of their forest growth. In the development of farm implements, none had done more than the tion and ment of Farm Machin ery Introduc- wedge-shaped, plain, narrow, convexed Improve- edge, with its light handle of tough hickory, cut to fit and retain the grasp of the hand. What a weapon that has been! What fitter emblem for the state than the pioneer axe? Next in order came the stump puller, which was an efficient aid in reclaiming the land for the plow and the production of crops. The plow came in its order. Of all farming implements the plow holds the first place of importance. Jethro Wood had brought out his cast-iron plow, but it was not introduced in the state until 1825, and received no general use until some years after. Up to the year 1840, there was little improvement in the plow. Editor Q. D. Harris says the following of the Ohio plow In 1817, when we took our :1 first lessons in plowing, by riding on the beam, farmers had only one kind of plow, the wooden plow,—massive beam, mouldboard, landside, standard-all except the wrought-iron share and long bolt; and many is the week our boy's legs have trudged between the handles of such an institution after a yoke of oxen with a horse 1 Ohio Cultivator, Vol. VIII, page 340. tion and Farm in the lead. When we arrived at the years Introducof discretion—that is, twenty-one and a Improvewife-the cast-iron plows were coming into ment of fashion, but though a great improvement Machinon the timber plow, it was such a thing as ery no modern farmer (1857) would take as a gift. The opening of the rich, black lands of the West created a demand for a plow1 that would scour, which the best cast-iron plows would not do upon the prairies or upon the Scioto bottoms. Then the steel plow was brought out, and the farmer could hardly credit the tale that a plow was found that would clean in any soil. Up to the year 1848 steel plows in Ohio were as scarce as honest lawyers in chancery. At the beginning of that year, a blacksmith who had learned to make steel plows, came to Gambier, Knox county, Ohio, with his young family, for the purpose of educating himself for a minister of the gospel, at Kenyon college. Having no capital but a good trade and a stout heart, he set up a rude forge and commenced to work his passage.' On the first of February, 1848, he inserted a modest advertisement in the Ohio 1 Ohio Cultivator, 1848. 6 tion and Farm Machin ery Introduc- Cultivator to furnish steel plows and warrant the share and mouldboard of every Improvement of one to polish throughout in any soil however damp. This was thought a very bold proposition, and brought orders from some of our heavy valley farms. The plows justified the warranty, and the studentblacksmith had his hands full of work. Having acquitted himself creditably in both capacities, the student laid aside his leather apron and hammer and betook himself more exclusively to the surplice and prayer book, while others have kept up the apostolic succession of the plow. We will not say in which capacity the blacksmith has done the more good to the country. Certain it is that as a plow maker he deserves the meed of a most honorable mention, and now as we sometimes take the hand of the Rev. E. A. Strong and look into his keen eye and determined face, we feel like pronouncing upon him the benediction of agriculture; and when we go to Gambier Hill we look upon the sight of that rude forge with as much interest as we used to muse among the ruins of Ticonderoga and Crown Point." |