Agricultural Equipment Industry

AGRICULTURAL EQUIPMENT INDUSTRY

The mechanization of agricultural equipment in the mid-nineteenth century began a period of rapid change and advancement for the agricultural industry. Mechanization made the processes of planting and harvesting quicker and reduced the industry's reliance on manual labor. Until mechanization began in the 1850s, farmers used hand tools made of wood or iron. The industrial revolution and the modernization of equipment sometimes brought rebellions by rural workers who feared machines would eliminate their jobs.

These fears were not completely unfounded. By using machine work in place of many tasks traditionally done by laborers, mechanized equipment did lessen the agricultural industry's dependence on manual labor. In 1850, the first threshing machines were created independently by Cyrus McCormick (1809–1884) in the United States and Patrick Bell in Scotland. Plow improvements enabled farmers to work easily in different types of soil, while technological advances mechanized the planting and measurement of corn. An early breakthrough came in the 1850s, in Galesburg, Illinois, when George W. Brown developed the first semi-mechanized method of corn planting using a horse-drawn machine that manually dropped seed. These first innovations stimulated further inventions. For example, "furrow openers" or shoes were placed on the front of the vehicle to prepare the soil. Seed-dropping became more refined, which allowed the vehicle operator to pay closer attention to where the corn was placed. Hay rakes, hay-loaders, harvesting machines, and milking machines also appeared at about this time.

Steam power, which came to be used on farms in the 1860s, made mechanized equipment a vital part of the farming industry. It rapidly turned the curve of development upward by expanding into so many areas of farming technology that in 1860 the U.S. Patent Office issued hundreds of new patents. Among these were patents for harvesters, shellers, huskers, cultivators, and cob crushers for corn, as well as smut machines and seed drills.

When the first gasoline-powered tractor was built in 1901, most American farmers could not afford it, but in 1917 automobile entrepreneur Henry Ford offered his Fordson tractor for $397, a price that made the product much more accessible to farmers. Seven years later International Harvester introduced its versatile Farmall tractor with removable attachments. One such attachment was the cultivator, which could penetrate the soil at different depths. Other attachments included rotary hoes that could chop up weeds, and spraying devices that could spray in circles of up to 100 feet. Gasoline-driven tractors came into wider use during the 1920s and 1930s, increasingly replacing the horse for farm labor. Between 1940 and 1960, five million tractors replaced an estimated twelve million horses.

The era of the western and southern farmer coincided with the era of the railroad, as it was the rail system during the second half of the nineteenth century that allowed the farmer to get his crop to market. Advancements in the transportation industry in the early twentieth century had a profound impact on agriculture. The truck and the airplane both significantly contributed to the production and transportation of farm products. After they first appeared on farms between 1913 and 1920, trucks changed the marketing and production patterns of farm products. Their importance to harvesting the fields was paramount because they could haul items such as fertilizer, feed, crops, and livestock. Later on, the development of portable refrigeration units allowed trains and trucks to carry freshly slaughtered meat to market. Trucks also carried pigs to centralized meatpacking centers in the cities.

Farmers found many uses for the airplane in farm work. In the early twentieth century, one of the first uses for the airplane was to scatter poison dust over cotton fields infected by the pink mollworm. Other early tasks included dusting against disease and insects, spreading fertilizer, transporting breeding livestock, and dropping bales of hay to livestock stranded in snowstorms. The use of the truck and the airplane helped alleviate many problems faced by agricultural workers, such as crop failure due to disease or insects.

At the same time improvements in steam power and gasoline-driven vehicles continued. The versatile Farmall tractor in the early 1900s replaced the steam-driven reaping and threshing machine that was first introduced in the 1880s. Despite wide use of the Allis Chalmers' All-Crop Harvester as early as 1936, however, crop harvester advancements were delayed because of World War II (1939–1945). The All-Crop was a diesel-driven combine with a capacity for mass-harvesting, but consumers still preferred the more affordable picker-sheller machines, which were more affordable if less advanced. The use of silos and improved storage methods eventually gave the All-Crop Harvester an unbeatable advantage in the farm implement market.

The advancements in agricultural equipment slowed in the latter half of the twentieth century and some of the industry's old standbys began to weaken. During the 1980s, American farmers bought about 50,000 large tractors, but by the 1990s only a little over 20,000 were purchased. Combine harvesters also began to lose their appeal. Only 130,000 were sold during the 1980s compared to 300,000 in the 1970s. This trend continued into the 1990s. Showroom viewing of new farm equipment became less popular, creating a swollen inventory in early 1991. Farmers were also subject to a variety of short-term hazards like the old problem of excess yields, which caused prices to drop. Also, high interest rates brought many farm bankruptcies in 1991.

Tied to the always shaky farming sector, the economic highs and lows of the agricultural equipment market also continued to affect employment in the farm implement industry. In the early 1990s tractor and industrial truck manufacturing was concentrated in 139 factories in the five-state region of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Illinois. The manufacturing of farm machinery generated large revenues and employed a substantial number of people. In 1993 Deere & Company, a leader in the industry, employed 36,500 and had sales of $7 billion. Another industry leader, J.I. Case, employed 7,000 and generated sales of $3.7 billion.

See also: Agriculture Industry, Cyrus McCormick

FURTHER READING

Brandon, Hembree. "Machinery Sales Pace Quickens." Implement and Tractor, November/December 1993.

Brezonick, Mike. "How Deere Designed Its New Ag Tractors." Diesel Progress Engines and Drivers, April 1993.

Little, Dale L. "Legacy of Science." Farm Chemicals, July 1993.

Semling, Harold V. "Commerce Predicts Good MH Sales Year." Material Handling Engineering, March 1982.

Witt, Clyde E. "Partnering Gets Lift from Crane Manufacturers." Material Handling Engineering, January 1992.