Some simple folk told him that his great plow would not work, but they contented themselves with saying this dogmatically, without giving any mathematical reason therefore. So the superintendent went on with his plans.
The blacksmiths and machinists finished the plow in due time. The share was made to cut a fifty-inch furrow; the top of it reached five feet above the ground, to give room to throw the earth. The beam was more than a foot thick; but the machine was constructed to run between two great wheels, so that it could be turned around easily; and on the axle between these wheels was the seat for the man who was to drive the ten horses which were hitched to it.
The plow was brought to the great field, the ten horses were attached to it, the handles were raised, the driver mounted his seat, and the team was started. But as soon as the share struck well into the ground the horses stopt short. They were stuck fast. And yet the plow had not gone too deeply into the earth. But it was evident that they could not pull the plow. More horses were brought out, but not until fifty were attached did the plow move along.
Even then it required four men to hold the handles, in order to keep the plow in the furrow. It was an economic failure.
Then the superintendent, through the intervention of some one who was a better mathematician than he, learned that he should have cubed the capacity of his twelve-inch plow every time he doubled the width of it.—Harper’s Weekly.
(2035)
MISER, A WORTHLESS
A certain John Hopkins, familiarly known in his day for his rapacity as “Vulture Hopkins,” lived a worthless life but died possest of a million and a half dollars, left so as not to be inherited until after the second generation, so that, as he said, “his heirs would be as long spending it as he had been in getting it.” Pope preserved his memory in this couplet:
“When Hopkins dies a thousand lights attend
The wretch who, living, saved a candle’s end.”