It is not strange that in an early annual report of the United States Commissioner of Agriculture, that official should have remarked with some bitterness that "Although Wood was one of the greatest benefactors to mankind by this admirable invention, he never received, for all his thought, anxiety and expense, a sum of money sufficient to defray the expenses of his decent burial." The time long since passed forever to seek pecuniary indemnity; but a debt of gratitude never outlaws, and it is due to the great inventor that his countrymen should gratefully cherish his memory. Every year adds to the debt we all owe him. As the area of cultivation widens, the obligation deepens. Already America is the foremost nation of all the earth in the production of wheat and provisions, the latter being in reality corn in meat form. In exchange for our food supplies, the United States is draining Europe of its gold at an enormous rate, and the fundamental element in the production of American wealth, is our great implement of tillage. American prosperity is the monumental glory of Jethro Wood and his plow. "The Balance Sheet of the World" shows that the United States can boast more acres of tillage, in proportion to population, than any other country on the globe; and in grain production, outstrips all competitors. Of such a record every American citizen may well be proud, and it should be remembered that without the genius of Wood such a record could not have been made, even approximately. But in order to a just appreciation of the importance of the modern plow and the usefulness of the inventor of it, one should take a retrospective glance, tracing, as best we may without tedious details, the steps which led from the use of a forked stick to the present implement for fallowing the ground. The _Scientific American_, which ought to be good authority on such a subject, in speaking of the Wood patent, says: "Previously the plow was a stick of wood plated with iron." If this does sound like an exaggeration, but is really a plain statement of fact, consider for a moment what the plow really is in its relation to civilization.