od deal of hard labor on the farm. But invention has
reduced the labor and has made possible the carrying on of this vast
industry by a relatively small number of hands.

The farmers of Washington's day had no better tools than had the
farmers of Julius Caesar's day; in fact, the Roman ploughs were probably
superior to those in general use in America eighteen centuries later.
"The machinery of production," says Henry Adams, "showed no radical
difference from that familiar in ages long past. The Saxon farmer of the
eighth century enjoyed most of the comforts known to Saxon farmers of
the eighteenth."* One type of plough in the United States was little
more than a crooked stick with an iron point attached, sometimes with
rawhide, which simply scratched the ground. Ploughs of this sort were
in use in Illinois as late as 1812. There were a few ploughs designed to
turn a furrow, often simply heavy chunks of tough wood, rudely hewn into
shape, with a wrought-iron point clumsily attached. The moldboard was
rough and the curves of no two were alike. Country blacksmiths made
ploughs only on order and few had patterns. Such ploughs could turn a
furrow in soft ground if the oxen were strong enough--but the friction
was so great that three men and four or six oxen were required to turn a
furrow where the sod was tough.

* "History of the United States", vol. I, p. 16.

Thomas Jefferson had worked out very elaborately the proper curves of
the moldboard, and several models had been constructed for him. He was,
however, interested in too many things ever to follow any one to the
end, and his work seems to have had little publicity. The first real
inventor of a practicable plough was Charles Newbold, of Burlington
County, New Jersey, to whom a patent for a cast-iron plough was issued
in June, 1797. But the farmers would have none of it. They said it
"poisoned the soil" and fostered the growth of weeds. One David Peacock
received a patent in 1807, and two others later. Newbold sued Peacock
for infringement and recovered damages. Pieces of Newbold's original
plough are in the museum of the New York Agricultural Society at Albany.

Another inventor of ploughs was Jethro Wood, a blacksmith of Scipio, New
York, who received two patents, one in 1814 and the other in 1819. His
plough was of cast iron, but in three parts, so that a broken part
might be renewed without purchasing an entire plough. This principle of
standardization mar