s for stirring the soil, which finally became flattened in
the form of a paddle or rude spade. The hoe was evolved from the stone
pick or hatchet. It is said that the women of the North American
tribes used a hoe made of an elk's shoulder-blade and a handle of wood.
In Sweden the earliest records of tillage represent a huge hoe made
from a stout limb of spruce with the sharpened root. This was finally
made heavier, and men dragged it through the soil in the manner of
ploughing. Subsequently the plough was made in two pieces, a handle
having been added. Finally a pair of cows yoked together were
compelled to drag the plough. Probably this is a fair illustration of
the manner of the evolution of the plough in other countries. It is
also typical of the evolution of all modern agricultural implements.

We need only refer to our own day to see how changes take place. The
writer has cut grain with the old-fashioned sickle, the scythe, the
cradle, and the reaper, and has lived to see the harvester cut and
thresh the grain in the field. The Egyptians use until this day wooden
ploughs of an ancient type formed from limbs of trees, having a share
pointed with metal. {95} The old Spanish colonists used a similar
plough in California and Mexico as late as the nineteenth century.
From these ploughs, which merely stirred the soil imperfectly, there
has been a slow evolution to the complete steel plough and disk of
modern times. A glance at the collection of perfected farm machinery
at any modern agricultural fair reveals what man has accomplished since
the beginning of the agricultural art. In forest countries the
beginning of agriculture was in the open places, or else the natives
cut and burned the brush and timber, and frequently, after one or two
crops, moved on to other places. The early settlers of new territories
pursue the same method with their first fields, while the turning of
the prairie sod of the Western plains was frequently preceded by the
burning of the prairie grass and brush.

The method of attachment to the soil determined economic progress. Man
in his early wanderings had no notion of ownership of the land. All he
wished was to have room to go wherever the food quest directed him, and
apparently he had no reflections on the subject. The matters of fact
regarding mountain, sea, river, ocean, and glacier which influenced his
movements were practically no different from the fact of other tribes
that