CHAPTER III.

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

The Sowing of Grain.--The Sower of the Parables.--His Art and its Defects Lasted until Nineteenth Century.--The Problems to be Solved.--Assyrian and Chinese Seeding Implements.--India.-- Italy First to Introduce a Grain Sowing Machine, Seventeenth Century.--Zanon’s Work on Agriculture, 1764.--Austria and England.--A Spaniard’s Invention.--Don Lescatello.--The Drill of Jethro Tull.--A Clergyman, Cooke’s Machine.--Washington and Others.--Modern Improvements in Seeders and their Operation and Functions.--Force Feed and Gravity Feed.--Graduated Flow.-- Divided Feeds for Separate Grains and Fertilizing Material.-- Garden Ploughs and Seeders.--Gangs of Heavy Ones.--Operated by Steam.--Corn Planters.--Walking and Riding.--Objects of Proper Planting.--How Accomplished by Machinery.--Variety of Machines.--Potatoes and the Finest Seeds.--Transplanters.-- Cultivators.--Their Purposes and Varieties.--Primitive and Modern Toilers.--Millet.--Tillers of the Soil no Longer “Brothers of the Ox.” 23