Machinery changes farm practices

The age of mechanized farming dawned at the turn of the centruy with such contraptions as this Hart-Parr' gasoline engine. The gasoline engine did much to change the mode of agriculture. (Smithsonian photo)

     Swishing their hand-held scythes in steady arcs, Colonial American farm workers harvested wheat with the technology of ancient Egypt.
     Today, only two centuries later, a one-man grain combine rumbles through the fields, performing work that would have required dozens of colonial farmers.
     This great technological upheaval not only thrust American agriculture from the level of bare self-sufficiency to that of supplying much of the world, it also meant side effects would greatly affect American society.
     Man would become obsolete in many farming operations, and the resulting tide of migration to cities would spawn social problems that still elude collusion. Changes occurred so rapidly that no orderly transition from rural to urban society could be instituted. Yet, without these advances, mankind would face an even greater hunger problem.

Story of mechanization

     The story of mechanization of American agriculture ant its impact on American history may have begun in the same fertile minds that hatched concepts that led to the American Revolution.
     Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were perhaps as interested in agriculture as they were in founding a new nation.
     Washington constantly searched for better farm implements for his Mount Vernon plantation by corresponding with progressive British agriculturists.
     Jefferson, an amateur inventor, tinkered with many devices designed to improve farming.

Common concerns

     Although Jefferson's designs were rarely practical, concerns that he and Washington shared in improving agriculture mirrored concerns of the land were 9 out of 10 workers were engaged in agriculture.
     Those Virginia aristocrats may have shared common concerns with typical farmers in 1776, but certainly not lifestyles.
     Life of the typical farmer was less attractive than that of Virginia aristocrats. To earn his livelihood, the colonial farmer cleared virgin land with axes and oxen, broke soil with ox-drawn wooden plows, planted seed by hand and harvested and processed the crop with crude, hand-held implements. The aristocrats had their hired hands and slaves to do that kind of work.

Red Coats and tomahawks

     Although colonial farm life has been much romanticized as being simple and untroubled by such modern problems as crime, poverty and foreign threats, it was far from being utopian.
     A more sever form of "mugging" came with Indian raids; "foreign threats" roamed the countryside in red British uniforms, and poverty, which in those days meant starvation rather than low income, was the inevitable consequence of a crop failure.
     The first great American agricultural invention arrived in 1793 in the nation's infancy: Eli Whitney's cotton gin.
     The cotton gin, which separated lint from seed, not only made possible a great new farm staple in the South but also revitalized the dying institution of slavery and helped lead to the Civil War.

Plow main attention

     The plow was the object of attention for many inventors. The first patented plow was designed by Charles Newbold. The Newbold plow was solid cast iron except for handles and beam.
     Few farmers were willing to try the new implement, however, because many were convinced iron poisoned the land and made weeds grow.

The Wood plow

     In 1814, Jethro Wood patented another cast iron plow and improved it in 1819. Moldboard, share and landside were cast in three interchangeable parts, allowing damaged parts to be replaced. The Wood plow was popular.
     As farmers pushed westward onto the prairies, another problem confronted the plow. Prairie soil stuck to both wooden and cast iron plows instead of sliding by and turning over.
     In 1833, Illinois blacksmith John Lane came up with the idea of fastening strips of saw steel over wooden moldboards. Another Illinois blacksmith, John Deere, used saw steel and smooth wrought iron for washers and moldboards. By 1846, Deere and his partner were turning out 1,000 plows a year.
     The harvesting problem also received attention. Obed Hussey patented a horse-drawn reaper in 1833. At about the same time, Cyrus H. McCormick completed a design his father had started, and patented his reaper in 1834. By 1851, 1,000 McCormick reapers were produced each year to dominate the business.
     The corn cultivator preceded the reaper. It was in limited use by the 1820's along with the revolving rake. In 1837, the Pitts brothers patented a widely-used threshing machine.
     By the Civil War, the array of horse-drawn equipment, included grain drills, corn shellers, hay-baling presses, cultivators of various types, and many other farm implements.

Farmers reluctant

     Yet, most farmers were reluctant to invest in expensive new equipment while labor was plentiful and cheap and good prices were relatively low. The equipment was available, but the inclination to try it was not.
     Then, in 1861, South Carolina troops opened fire on the federal installation at Fort Sumter. The huge supply of farm labor suddenly disappeared as thousands of farm hands joined Union and Confederate armies. With a huge demand for food to supply the great armies, prices shot up.
     The thunder of cannon had ushered in the day of horse labor, and marked the end of the day of hand labor. With these new incentives, farmers quickly accepted horse-drawn machines.
     As the war ended, Union soldiers found their farm jobs had been replaced by horse-drawn contraptions, and Confederate soldiers returned to ruins of the one-crop agricultural system.
     Something else evolved from the war that was, perhaps, just as significant; the day when a farm laborer could start his own operation by acquiring cheap land and a few tools was gone forever.
     The dream of owning a farm was restricted by expense of machines that were required to be competitive.

The surplus problem

     Even those who were able to buy the machines found themselves in deep trouble. The virtue of the machines - increased production - resulted in surpluses that depressed prices. Farmers, then, became more dependent on bankers and merchants.
     In 1850, each farmer had an average of $7 invested in equipment. By 1880 that amount had almost quadrupled. The war forced farmers to become committed to commercial production and rely on necessary machines.
     As a result of these investments, farmers faced a constant battle between 1870 and 1900 to produce enough to pay for their machinery.

Tide of migration

     Along with this trend, the number of available farm jobs dropped as machines replaced laborers. A tide of farm people began moving to cities where jobs were not available. This spawned urban slums and the resulting social problems of crime and poverty.
     In early years of the 20th century, most attention was still focused on developing machines to increase production. Soil was a neglected resource, as the general practice was to abandon land when it was depleted. With vast undeveloped areas, few people worried about soil enrichment. Yields per acre rarely increased from year to year.

Twilight of the horse

     Meanwhile, the day of the horse was approaching its twilight as the minds of men turned to steam and petroleum power. Steam engines were used to thresh wheat on large western farms. By 1913, 10,000 such devices were produced. After that, their use declined rapidly as gasoline tractors came on the market.
     The first practical, self-propelled gasoline tractor was built in 189+2 by John Froelich of Iowa, who mounted a gasoline engine on running gear equipped with traction equipment. The Froelich was the forerunner of John Deere tractors.

Wars help machines

     Still, it took something else to convert these contraptions from novelty into general acceptance. Both the adoption of gas-powered equipment and the horse as a labor source share a common instigator: the outbreak of war. In both instances, wartime labor shortages forced farmers to turn to labor-saving technology.
     In World War I, farm prices climbed and labor shortages developed as in the Civil War. Once again, farmers quickly adopted the best labor-saving, productive equipment available. Tractor sales accelerated rapidly.
     But in July 1920 farm prices nose-dived, and during the 1920s the farm economy looked so uncertain that farmers were reluctant to switch much further toward expensive tractor power.
     Just prior to the war, more groundwork for the switch had been laid through New Deal programs that encouraged farmers to replace worn-out machines with current models. The rural electrification program opened a vast new power source. The stage was well set for the "second American agricultural revolution."
     The switch to mechanization was only part of that revolution. Great advances were made in seed development, soil conservation, irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides. In effect, the systems approach to farming had arrived, and the results were awesome in terms of production.
     Yet, there is a darker side to this story. What happened to the millions of Americans who were no longer needed on the farm?
     Just taking the years between 1950 and 1975, farm employment was reduced by 66 percent, or 5.6 million. Its expected to drop another 10 percent by 1980.
     The impact on many rural areas was catastrophic, with small town businesses, schools and even churches dealt crippling effects as economies suffered and people faced unemployment or migration.

Displaced farmworkers

     In the early 1960s, a steady flood of migrants poured into cities, aggravating already severe economic and social problems. Other displaced workers remained in the rural areas, living in deep poverty.
     An upbeat note has been sounded in recent years, however, as signs increasingly point to a turnaround of rural economies and a steady decline of migration to the cities.
     Granted, grave social problems have accompanied farm mechanization. But consider the alternatives.
     Without the highly mechanized American agricultural system, world hunger would be much more severe. And without the cornerstone of agricultural exports, the balance of trade would tilt dangerously against the U. S., with rising foreign oil costs and the sinking value of the dollar causing inflation to reach even higher levels.

- Wayne D. Rasmussen, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture

Extracted from the Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Special Publication, Our Story 'The Chippewa Valley and Beyond', published 1976
Used with permission.