Evening star., 1900-12-22

more progress In this department than
has the whole world in all time preceding.
Soon after the beginning of the present
century cast iron plows began to be made,
Charles Newbold of New Jersey being cred
tied with the first attempt at their manu-
faeture. A contemporary states his success
In the following language: Pre- esperity
did not attend him because Of local super
stition" that the "cast iron poisoned the
land, injured its fertility and promoted the
growth of weeds" AS late as 1890 cast
iron plows had not come into general use.
To-Day swivel, gang. disk and steam plows
nave enabled the plowman to accomplish
work many times greater in amount, of far
better quality, and with almost no real
labor of his own.
The harrow has been transformed from
the frame of scantling armed with iron
spikes to the disk, cutway. spring tooth
and lever-adjusting types, alike vastly su-
perior In efficiency and economy of labor.
For seeding and planting the hand hoe
has been replaced by the rover, the to-
bacco setter, grain drills. etc. not to
speak OF the machine that marks row,
plows Its burrows. distributes and incor-
pcrates fertilizers, drops and covers the
seed at the same time.
The number Of helps to the modern hay
maker is legion. The century found the
scythe and leaves the giant mower; 1t
found the hand fork and leaves the horse
tedder and hayloader; 1t found the hand
rake and leaves the self-dump. side deliv-
cry and sweep rakes. In the barn the
horse fork has replaced laborious hand
pitching. In the stack the sweep and
stacker have almost done away with hand
labor.
Agricultural Education.
A liberal education Of the last century
consisted mainly in the study Of things
of the past, Of which the history and liter
ature of the ancients formed the major
portion. While we would not disparage the
training that developed the master minds
of former generations we can but con-
template with satisfaction the emphasis
placed on the study Of things OF the
present. and the eager reaching out into
the realms Of the unknown future.
Agriculture Is so emphatically study
of the present century that even yet few
have begun to grasp its import nay, there
is a general misconception Of its nature
and scope. The science Of agriculture Is
not. as Is commonly supposed, a peculiar
aoaptation of the arts Of milking cows
Planting corn, hoeing potatoes or following
the plow. On the contrary, it has drawn
literally on the results of all modern
scientific research
During the past forty years agricultural
United States. doing work calculated to
make the twentieth century agriculture far
superior to that Of the present.
Hand In hand with this educational work.
the varied fields Of husbandry. Insects are
yielding up their lifes history, revealing
facts suggestive Of methods of protecting
our interests against their ravages. Micro
scopic organisms reveal a power in nature
till now undreamed Of, disclosing among
their numbers our warm friends and our
mcst deadly foes. 1t has become possible
to measure in heat and motion the energy
in every pound Of food fed to our animals.
The calorimeter faithfully measures every
gram Of gas exhaled from balance between
the intake and outgo, and notes the expendi-
ture of energy In every movement Of body
or limb. Even the eccentricities of the
weather are not allowed to pass unnoted.
Forecasts of storms advise the haymaker
to be on his guard, and frosts are not al
lowed to spring upon the ungathered crop
unannounced.
These and hosts of other things mark
the nineteenth as emphatically a century
Of progress in agriculture The seed it re-
ceived from its predecessor has grown and
borne fruit an hundredfold..