Sentence:  It is interesting , however , that despite this strong upsurge in Southern writing , almost none of the writers has forsaken the firmly entrenched concept of the white-suited big-daddy colonel sipping a mint julep as he silently recounts the revenue from the season 's cotton and tobacco crops ; of the stereotyped Negro servants chanting hymns as they <WSD>plow</WSD> the fields ; of these and a host of other antiquated legends that deny the South its progressive leaps of the past century . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  to break and turn over earth especially with a plow