Farming in Mexico

1908

Primitive Methods Still in Vogue in Many Sections

Mexico City. — The most primitive methods of agriculture are still in vogue in many parts of Mexico.

Even upon the farms adjacent to the City of Mexico and other large cities of that country, where it might be expected that modern machinery would have replaced the antiquated implements which have been in use since the time of the Aztecs, the ground is broken by wooden plows drawn by oxen.

These plows are cumbersome in construction and method of operation. The beam is about eight feet long and to it is frequently spliced another beam in order to afford working room for two yoke of oxen. The handle of the plow is an upright curved piece of timber. The plow point is also made of wood and is lashed to the brake-beam by means of thongs of rawhide.

The plowing with this heavy and unwieldy piece of mechanism is frequently done by Indian women. The men pick the easier kind of labor. The plow does little more than scrape the surface of the soil and but for the natural richness of the land and the splendid climate little could be grown where the work is performed by the ancient implement.


Famous Woman Life-Saver

America's bravest woman, in the opinion of the Society of the American Cross of Honor, is Ida Lewis Wilson, keeper of the Lime Rock lighthouse, off Newport, R.I. "Mistress Wilson," as the sailors call her, is declared by the society to have "rendered greater service tending toward the saving of life than any other woman of the country." The society has therefore awarded her a cross of honor. Mrs. Wilson is better known as Ida Lewis, who years ago gained a world-wide celebrity through her many heroic rescues of drowning persons. — Leslie's Weekly.