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.