A look at some notable ag events through the 25 decades of the U.S.A.
As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, it’s appropriate to remember the history and the importance farmers and agriculture have played since the country’s founding.
President George Washington, for example, is quoted as saying “I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman's cares."
And since the days of George Washington, American farmers, inventors, businesses, and lawmakers have been busy trying to improve agriculture.
With that at top of mind, Farms.com is highlighting a notable ag event from each decade of the U.S., from equipment innovations and birthdays to the establishment of the USDA.
This article focuses on the first 10 decades of agriculture the United States of America.
1770s – Cradle Scythe
While its origins aren’t exactly known, the cradle scythe, or grain cradle, became a popular piece of equipment for farmers in the 1770s.
This innovation saw the addition of fingers to a traditional scythe, allowing for a more efficient harvest.
Whereas a scythe cuts grain stalks and left them scattered in the field, the cradle scythe caught the stalks as they were cut and allowed farmers to lay them neatly into rows.
An experienced user could harvest up to two acres of wheat per day using a cradle scythe, the Madison County Historical Society says.
1780s – Moldboard Plow of Least Resistance
Thomas Jefferson created this piece of equipment in the late 1780s while serving as the minister to France and observing how French farmers used plows.
He applied calculus and geometry principles to design a mold board in the shape of two wedges combined at right angles with a curved plane.
This design would lift the sod up and turn it over at exactly 180 degrees while simultaneously burying crop residue and bringing deeper soil to the surface.
1790s – The Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793 during a stay on a plantation in Georgia.
Using wire teeth and a rotating cylinder, the cotton gin sped up the removal of seeds from raw cotton fibers.
Prior to the cotton gin’s invention, a single person could take up to 10 hours to remove seeds from one pound of cotton.
By the mid-19th century, cotton had become America’s leading export because of Whitney’s innovation.
1800s – John Deere’s Birth
The man whose name adorns multiple pieces of green farm equipment was born on Feb. 7, 1804, in Rutland, Vt.
He became a trained blacksmith when he was 17, and in 1836 he moved to Illinois where he’d set up a blacksmith shop in Grand Detour.
He heard from farmer customers that the cast-iron plows of the day didn’t perform well in the Midwest soils.
The rest, they say, is history.
1810s – The Merino Sheep Craze
During the early part of the decade, Spain protected its Merino sheep industry to the point of punishing anyone caught exporting live sheep by death, because the fleece the livestock produced was of high quality and in high demand.
On April 10, 1810, William Jarvis, then the United States’ Consul to Portugal, boarded a ship in Spain with about 4,000 Merino sheep to bring back to the U.S.
At the time, Spain lifted its ban on live Merino exports after Napoleon invaded to ensure the breed would live on.
Upon its establishment in the U.S., some textile manufacturers paid farmers up to $2.00 per pound of Merino wool compared to about 37.5 cents per pound for wool from other breeds.
1820s – Land Act of 1820
President James Moore signed the Land Act of 1820 on April 20 of that year.
The bill was designed to encourage public land sales, westward expansion, and support Americans after the Panic of 1819, the country’s first major financial crisis.
The bill did three things:
- Eliminated a previously used credit system that left many settlers and farmers in debt.
- Lowered the price of public land from $2.00 per acre to $1.25 per acre.
- Lowered the minimum purchase requirement from 160 acres to 80 acres, making land affordable for most farmers.
1830s – John Deere’s Steel Plow
After relocating to Grand Detour, Ill., from Vermont in 1836 to set up a blacksmith shop, John Deere set out to create a plow capable of working in Midwest fields without clogging for his farmer customers.
He designed the plow out of cast steel in 1837. Deere used an old sawmill blade he bent over a log to create the plow’s cutting part. And he used polished wrought iron on the moldboard to prevent clogging.
The design proved so successful that by 1846 he was selling almost 1,000 units per year.
In 1868 he moved from Grand Detour about an hour away where he incorporated his business, Deere & Company.
1840s – Cyrus McCormick’s Mechanical Reaper Takes Off
Though Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper in the 1830s, it was in the following decade his invention revolutionized agriculture.
This machine combined all the harvesting steps that were previously done separately.
The horse-drawn implement used a vibrating cutting blade, a reel to bring the grain within its reach, and a platform to catch the falling crops.
After a meeting with Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas where he saw the large Midwest grain fields, McCormick relocated to Chicago in 1847.
He advertised to farmers that they could harvest 15 acres per day with his reaper, and set a fixed price of $120 per unit.
1850s – George Brown’s Corn Planter
A carpenter and farmer in Galesburg, Ill., George Brown planted 24 acres of corn in 1852 using his horse-drawn corn planter.
He modified a cultivator by placing seed boxes on its shovels, installed a central lever for seed drops, and added concaved wheels to cover the seeds.
Though he sold 100 of his planters in 1854, area farmers were hesitant to adopt this new piece of technology on a larger scale.
“They express concerns about the seed being damaged, planted at the proper depth, being covered correctly, as well as proper placement in the checker pattern,” the Western Illinois Museum said.
1860s – Establishment of the United States Department of Agriculture
On May 15, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Department of Agriculture Organic Act into law and establishing the United States Department of Agriculture.
His reasons for creating the USDA included ensuring the Union army remained fed during the Civil War, and creating an entity to support research related to seeds, fertilizers, and farming practices.
In addition, the Homestead Act he signed transferred nearly 232 million acres of public land to private ownership to create more than 1 million farms. And the Morill Land Grant College Act allowed for public lands to be used for colleges of agriculture and mechanical arts.
Be sure to visit Farms.com often to learn about more historical events related to American agriculture in the runup to the country’s 250th birthday.