Page:Aristopia (1895).pdf/158

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

the governor's agents in England, and a fair price insured. A small profit went to the commonwealth, serving, instead of a tax, to pay public expenses.

Governor Morton early saw that the vast new continent presented for subjection to human control a vaster field than could he conquered by unaided human muscle in centuries, whatever myriads of the surplus population of Europe his gold would enable him to ship over. He saw that the wilderness must be conquered by machinery, and that the wants of the people engaged in the conquest must be ministered to by machinery, driven by water-power to do whatever work could be done by stationary machines, and propelled by horse-power where locomotive machines must be employed.

Agricultural implements and the methods of using them were among the first improvements made. Plows were greatly improved, and it was found that Indian corn could, after the land was freed from roots and numerous stumps, be cultivated with small, light plows much more easily than with hoes by hand, as the Indian squaws had done the work. The governor himself, having great inventive faculties, invented the grain cradle to take the place of