The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-06-05
THE PLOW.
What ne Ancients Knew About this
Useful Implement.

The PLOW.
What ae Ancients Knew About this
Useful Implement.
The pillow is, par excellence, the en-
blem of agriculture, and its history,
both authentic and NEUROLOGICAL, pos
sesses peculiar interest. The period
at which man first began to commute
the soil for the purpose of making it
produce sustenance tor himself and his
focks is so remote as to be lost in the
obscurity of the past f; but that it was
at an early period is clear. 1t is also
generally admitted that the OK and COW
were in this age used as native farmers,
and it is asserted that men and women
captured in war and reduced to slavery
were employed in this way before the OK
was trained or the COW became accus-
toned to the yoke for war, and its
offspring, slavery, are older than agrl-
culture.
The earliest pillow was pointed stick,
which the primitive man used to break
up the soil. This was slow and labo-
rious process, and one day the thought
came to, one wiser than his fellows that
the forked limb of tree might be made
efficient for this purpose. Acting upon
this thought, he formed pillow by cut
ting a forked limb from a. tree and
sh rpening one of the prongs, so that it
would penetrate the soil. 1t took two
persons to use this implement-one to
draw it, which he did by a bark or raw
hide trace, and one to hold and push it
into the ground. This, the first pillow,
proved great success, and was 70 ar
while thought to be the ne Dltts ultra
e 1
course of time, however, some inge-
NOUS laborer began to ques ton the per-
lection of this implement, and finding a
limb of somewhat different shape, he
constructed an improved pillow. The
fogies shook their heads and muttered
"humbug," but the progressive men
adopted it, and it ultimately superseded
the earlier devices. Ages went by be-
ore the forked stick pillow was succeeded
by another, composed of several pieces of
wood held together by mortises and
pins. This was improved from time to
time, untillit approached as near perfec-
ton as it was possible for pillow COM
posed wholly of wood.
The Romans were probably the first
to use iron in the construction of the
pillow. The pillow that Cincinnatus fol-
lowed was a rude affair, with no iron in
it except the point and share. The
Greeks have a myth which is interest
| ing in this connection. Prosperine, a
| daughter of Ceres goddess of agricul-
| ture), was abducted by Pluto while she
was IN the forest gathering flowers, and
was installed as queen of the lower re-
! gions. Ceres, inconsolable at the loss
of her daughter, wholly neglected the
| agricultural interests in her search for
the missing goddess. The result was
that the whole earth eventually became
| O barren waste. Jupiter and the other
| gods implored her to return to Olympus
and resume her duties as guardian of
agriculture, but in vain. She could
think of nothing except her lost daugh-
| ter. Jupiter now visited Pluto and
persuaded him to permit Prosperine to
revisit the earth and remain eight
months each year, and then return and
spend the other four with him. Ceres
consented to this arrangement, and at
once returned to Olympus. Before
going, however, she instructed Trjpto-
lemus of Eleusis in the art of agricul-
ture, and giving him her own chariot,
drawn by dragons, commanded him to
travel over the whole earth and distrib-
ute seed corn to its inhabitants. Trip
tolemus was the inventor of the pillow.
The Greeks held two feasts Y, ar in his
honor, one on account of the distrlbu-
ton of seed and the other because he
invented the pillow, without which the
seed would have been of little use.
Little improvement seems to have
been made in the pillow used by the
! Greeks and Roman s-foE over two thou
sand years, and indeed it was a most
clumsy affair, as recently as fifty years
ago being only a wedge, clearing the
soil and COMPRISING the subsoil.
It may be predicted that before many
vars, some Yankee Triptolemus will
revolutiOnize the ploy by constructing
one that shall combine the functions of
both the pillow and the harrow, and pos
sibly other and valuable adjuncts not
now anticipated. With all due respect
to the great plowmakers, it must be ad-
United that the mechanical idea EN-
bodied in the pillow as now constructed
is imperfect, and it is time this was re-
cognized and correct principles lncor-
porated in its construction, that it might
meet the demands of this progressive
and utilitarian age. Some attempts in
this direction have already been made,
but they, like all first attempts to EN-
body new idea, have been only par
tally successful. It is a recognized
axiom of modern times, that "Ameri-
can genius and perseverance know no
such word as failure" and it is conf
IDENTIFY expected that success in this de-
partment of mechanical invention will
Don be achieved.