Show TH THEMAN MAN W TH THE HOE I Millets Millet's somber The Man With The Hoe is one of the most famous famous famous fam fam- ous paintings in the world It was the inspiration for Edwin Markhams Markham's equally famous poem of the same name of which one verse reads Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground The emptiness of ages in his face And on his back the burden of the world There was much more to this than Ithan a poets poet's imagination Recorded Record Record- ed agricultural history goes back some years and in all that vast span of time the hoc hoe has been the symbol of the farmers farmer's physical physical physical cal burdens It has been well said that more boys have decided to leave the farm faim while hoeing than while doing doing doing do do- ing any other chore The beating the old-fashioned old hoe gives theman the theman man num who wields it has plagued food producers through the ages And only in the last century of unparalleled invention and progress progress progress ress have farmers been able to cultivate their crops without the hoe hoc A little less than a hundred years ago a machine called the straddle-row straddle walking cultivator was devised This marked to all practical purposes the modest beginning beginning beginning be be- ginning of what whal we now know as mechanized farming Since then the progress in this vast field I has been only one step short of incredible farmers of two or three generations back would find it totally unbelievable Tractors soil rotary hoes planters plant plant- ers seeders all manner of pow pow- er-driven er machines and attachments attachments attachments attach attach- ments have reduced physical labor to a minimum and at the same time enormously increased each farmers farmer's productivity The man with the hoe as Millet fillet painted him and Markham wrote of him belongs to the tile past The machine is the symbol of agricultures agriculture's agricultures agriculture's agricultures agriculture's tures ture's present |