An Illinois farmer invented the modern grain silo in the 1870s
As the United States of America approaches its 250th birthday on July 4, Farms.com is going back through the country’s history to highlight notable events and innovations that’ve helped shaped American ag along the way.
The first article documented the 1770s to the 1860s.
This timeframe included the birth of a boy named John Deere, Merino sheep being brought to the U.S. from Spain, and the establishment of the USDA.
So, what happened in U.S. ag following those years?
Let’s find out.
1870s – Construction of the Modern Grain Silo
The concept of storing grain dates to about 9500 BC when early civilizations would bury their grain underground.
But in 1873, Fred Hatch, a farmer from near Spring Grove, Ill., and his father Lewis, built what’s recognized as America’s first tower silo.
They dug an 8-foot pit inside their dairy barn that measured 10ft. by 16ft. They lined the pit with rocks and mortar and built 16-foot-high walls.
This structure eliminated groundwater spoilage farmers in Europe were experiencing. And the Hatches discovered if they removed a layer of silage on a daily basis, it would further reduce spoilage.
1880s – Invention of the Self-Propelled Combine
California farmer George Stockton Berry designed and built the first self-propelled combine, which he used for the first time in 1886.
At the time, farmers used a team of about 40 horses to harvest about 40 acres per day.
Berry incorporated a steam engine onto the combine’s design. Men forked straw into the back of the separator back into the firebox to heat the water in the boiler.
This allowed farmers to harvest up to 100 acres per day.
In addition, Berry invented PTO by using steam from the tractor engine to power an independent engine on the combine.
1890s – Invention of the Gas-Powered Tractor
John Froehlich, an inventor from Froelich, Iowa (the town named after his father Henry), is credited with building the first gasoline-powered tractor with forward and reverse gears, in 1892.
Along with blacksmith William Mann, the duo attached a single-cylinder Van Duzen gas engine onto a Robinson engine frame and added components like a water-cooling system and a reversing clutch.
“With a helper, William Mann, (Froelich) put together a sort of hybrid machine which stubbornly refused to work on its trial run,” according to Waterloo: A Pictorial History. “Mann wedged a rifle cartridge (without the bullet) into the priming cup, hit it with a hammer and the flywheel set to spinning. Froelich put the machine in gear and it moved forward. He put it in reverse and, clankety clank, it moved backward.”
That fall, Froelich brought the tractor to South Dakota where he threshed 62,000 bushels of grain in 52 days.
In 1893 Froelich and other investors founded the Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Co., which produced the Waterloo Boy tractor. That tractor became such a success that John Deere purchased the company.
1900s – Invention of the Track Tractor
In 1904, Benjamin Holt, co-founder of what would become Caterpillar, invented a way to prevent his heavy wheeled tractor from sinking into the soil.
He wondered about a machine that resembled the treadmill (invented in 1818), that picked up and laid its own track as it traveled.
On Thanksgiving Day that year, Holt and others removed wheels from a tractor and replaced them with a pair of crank units and wooden tracks.
The new machine was a success.
“In a tract where a man could not walk without sinking to his knees and where horses could not be used, the new track-type tractor was operated without a perceptible impression in the ground. This tract of land has been useless for crop raising for several years because no way was found to plow it, but the track-tractor has brought the land into use again,” Farm Implement News reported at the time.
One year later a photographer described Holt’s machine as a “giant caterpillar” and the name stuck.
1910s – The Smith-Lever Act of 1914
Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on May 8, 1914, the law connected land-grant universities with the USDA and created the national Cooperative Extension System to make research in ag and home economics accessible to the public.
Tuskegee University, now the Tuskegee Institute in in Alabama, hired Thomas Monroe Campbell as the first Cooperative Extension Agent in the U.S.
1920s – Burr-Leaming Hybrid Corn
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station released the first commercially successful double-cross hybrid, the Burr-Leaming, in 1921.
This hybrid came from crossing the Burr White and Leaming varieties.
At the time, corn hybrids were produced via single cross and using two inbred lines. Double crosses use two different single crosses.
Dr. Donald Jones, who oversaw corn at the research station, came up with the double cross method.
He suggested double-cross hybrids use four inbred parents to remove limitations the poor vigor of the inbred parents caused.
The Burr-Leaming helped farmers get “on the average one- sixth more grain than they obtain from the type of the next highest yield,” an August 1929 New York Times article says.
1930s – Mary-Dell Chilton is Born
Born February 2, 1939, in Indianapolis, Ind., Mary-Dell Chilton is recognized as a founder of modern plant biotechnology and credited with creating the first genetically modified plant.
A team she led discovered the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens naturally alters a plant’s genetics and can cause crown gall disease. And by removing the genes that cause the disease, they nullified the bacterium.
In 1982 her team successfully transferred a selected gene into tobacco plants, creating the first transgenic, or genetically engineered plant.
1940s – Invention of 2,4-D
During the Second World War, a group of American and British scientists working under wartime secrecy parameters were tasked with developing a way of destroying rice in Japan and potatoes in Germany.
As part of this research, scientists discovered 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid).
The herbicide proved ineffective on the intended crops but was found to control broadleaf weeds while leaving other grains in tact.
After the war, 2,4-D was declassified and was released commercially in 1946.
1950s – The Rise of Agribusiness
American agriculture was undergoing a shift in the 1950s, and a Harvard professor came up with a word for it.
Ray A. Goldberg is responsible for coining the term “agribusiness” in 1957, and its implied definition.
Together with another professor, John Davis, the two published a book called A Concept of Agribusiness, arguing that small-scale farming was transforming into an interdependent and corporate system.
1960s – John Deere Introduces the ROPS
1966 marked a major development in farm equipment safety when John Deere introduced their Roll-Gard protection system after beginning its development three years earlier.
It featured a two-post structure attached to the rear axle housing.
And in the event of a rollover, the ROPS stopped the tractor before it could flip all the way over or left enough space for a farmer to escape.
Understanding the importance of safe equipment operation, John Deere released the rights to its ROPS patents to other equipment manufacturers in 1971.
Farms.com hopes you’ve enjoyed this second peek at U.S. ag history.
Be sure to check Farms.com again to see what the next decades have in store.