[Illustration: THE “OLD MILL” AT LAWRENCE, Erected in 1863. This was a gristmill, an octagon shaped, four-story structure, having a genuine Holland windmill for motive power. Additional buildings were erected for the manufacture of wagons and farming implements. The mill was abandoned many years ago, and in 1905 it burned.] =Early Farming Implements.= The farming implements of the pioneers were few and simple. Much of the machinery of to-day had not then been invented. Because of the cost of transportation, and the lack of money among the settlers, even the machinery of that day was scarce in Kansas. The all-important implement was the plow. The pioneer’s first crop was usually “sod corn.” The field was prepared with a breaking plow, which threw up the sod in parallel strips from two to five inches in thickness. Then the farmer, with an ax or a spade and a bag of seed corn, walked back and forth across the field, prying apart or gashing the sod at regular intervals and dropping into each opening three or four grains of corn. Then he waited for the crop. Once the land was broken, it was, in after years, prepared for the seed with the stirring plow and the harrow, and planting was done with a hand planter. Later the corn planter drawn by a team came into use. This machine required a driver, and another person to work the lever that dropped the corn. Then came the planter with the checkrower which, when attached to the planter, made only a driver necessary. During the last few years the lister has come into very general use. [Illustration: CORN BINDER.] The early settlers cultivated their corn with a single-shovel cultivator drawn by one horse. With this cultivator it was necessary to make a trip along each side of every row of corn. The double-shovel cultivator soon came into use, but it, also, was drawn by one horse and cultivated but one side of the row at a time. This labor was greatly reduced by the invention of the cultivator drawn by a team and having shovels for both sides of the corn row. Now cultivators may be had that till two rows at a time. Formerly the farmer cut all of his corn by hand with a knife. Now he uses the riding corn binder.