The Advantages of Farm Power & Machinery in Agriculture

Plowing

• Throughout most of the 18th century, oxen and horses were employed to propel plows through the fields. The plows were made of wood and were inefficient in the removal of weeds or large stones. The dawn of the 19th century saw improvements in the plow, such as cast iron blades and removable parts. John Deere followed these improvements with the first steel plow. As the second half of the 19th century commenced, frames with multiple plow blades created greater efficiency in soil preparation using the same human and animal energy. Yet a new power source was gaining recognition in the 1860s, when the first steam tractors were tested. By this decade, the number of labor hours required to produce 100 bushels of corn was reduced by more than two thirds, to about 50 hours. The internal combustion engine entered the scene in 1902, and its widespread use by 1930 reduced the number to 20 hours.

Planting

• Until the 19th century, farmers planted seed manually, utilizing a stick or pole to create an opening in which to drop the seed. Under such a regimen, consistency of depth and spacing was doubtless non-existent. In the 1800s, crude devices known as "sowing machines" were developed, whereby a two-wheel muscle-driven planter drilled a hole, dropped the seed and refilled the hole in one pass. The advent of the gasoline-powered tractor at the turn of the century spurred refinement in the planter, which has since been used as an attachment. Over time the planters have become increasingly precise. Constant depth and placement are today insured by sensors, increasing germination rates and harvesting yields.

Cultivation

• Tilling the soil without upsetting the planted crop may have appeared permanently designed for the hoe. In the 18th century, however, farmers began using their horses to drag wooden frames with sharp prongs across their fields. The frames were designed such that the prongs straddled the crop while breaking up the soil on either side. This presented an enormous savings in time and personnel. As gas-powered tractors gained in horsepower and adopted rubber tires in the 1930s, the cultivators became more sophisticated. Adjustable spans and depths are now commonplace, and the tractor-powered attachments can operate at higher speeds. Movable water-sprinklers, developed in the 1940s, provided insurance to the farmers that a greater percentage of crops would remain healthy during the growing season, even if weather was not cooperative. From that decade on, irrigated acreage increased four-fold.

Harvest

• Although Eli Whitney is credited with revolutionizing cotton harvesting with the invention of the cotton gin in the late 18th century, the process saw little savings in time or labor until the 1930s. During the Great Depression, the spindle picker was patented. International Harvester then mass-produced this instrument and, while availability of urban jobs is credited with rural flight during these years, mechanization of the harvesting process further reduced the opportunities for on-farm labor, particularly in the south. The cotton harvesters grew in capacity and efficiency so that by 1968 they accounted for 96 percent of the harvest, reducing the number of labor-hours per 100 pounds to five. Meanwhile the development of self-propelled combines for cereal grains condensed three tasks--picking, threshing and cleaning--into one machine. Like his brethren in cotton, a wheat farmer could, by the 1960s, produce 100 bushels in five labor hours. This represented a 75 percent reduction from three decades earlier.