Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/559

Rh employer may see fit to impose upon him; but the fallacy of this is too well known by all who have tried the experiment of farming. The peon, like the rest of his race, has an instinctive dislike to



any innovations and he clings to his rude methods of agriculture, driving the new-fangled notions to the wall or stacking them in the fields, while he unceremoniously returns to the ancient forked stick. He hugs the rawhide harness thongs and straps, and the primitive fixtures of his forefathers, and will not yield them up without a determined resistance.

In the hope of compromising matters with these ultra-conservatives, a wide-awake Chicago firm has recently invented and patented a steel plow that is the exact reproduction of the forked stick and makes a furrow much deeper, whereby finer results are obtained.

I visited several haciendas, and on each more or less of our agricultural implements were used. Every agent with whom I conversed spoke hopefully that finally the products of our manufactories would prevail over any and every competition. But with the inherent prejudice of the peon, it is not a source of wonder that even a progressive hacendado hesitates to introduce any new form. On some plantations both the ancient and modern work side by side. But on many large estates one sees as yet only the usages of the Romans or ancient Europeans. It is easy for the mind to travel backward to the days