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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

I have not been along the northern coast for many years, something I need to
rectify.

One of the things I do as I wander about is take in antique tractor and
pioneer shows.  I like to watch the demonstrations and if given the chance
participate.  I also study the history of agriculture.

Industrialized farming sort of started in the middle of the 19th century as
the population grew and farm labor started getting expensive.  The reaper
exemplified that trend as it replaced the cradle and the med needed from the
1840s.  As farming moved west and the large Bonanza farms (themselves a
product of heavy outside investment) came into being more mechanization was
required.  The Civil War cut the rural labor force more than the urban,
adding more pressures to produce.

Power farming came in response to the labor shortages after 1914.  Henry
Ford developed what would be called the Fordson in response to England's
need to replace young men sent to the meat grinders of the war.  One of the
major products of the US in support of the war was Mules and again more
pressures for power farming.  New scientific knowledge increased yields
requiring heavier harvesting machinery.  And all this moved the farm economy
from a local somewhat self sustaining to the world stage requiring external
inputs.  Small farmers tried to hang on with teams or a single tractor but
the rush was to get big.

I have a series of almanacs published by IHC from 1909 to 1919.  IHC
popularized the term "Power Farming" and the books are filled with
comparisons between horses and tractors, obviously all skewed toward
tractors.  There is still a lot of horse information in the books as
tractors were used mostly for heavy loads such as plowing and operating
machinery such as the threshing machines and hemp brakes.  IHC developed the
first real general purpose tractor in 1924.

As mentioned my father grew up horse farming in the 30s.  They had a steam
engine and a plowing tractor.  He an my uncles all went off to WWII and
learned welding, Diesel mechanics, and heavy equipment operation and when
they returned all built businesses and livelihoods using those skills.  Only
my father and one cousin farmed.  They all had little good to say about
farming with horses.  This was in Missouri where farms in the fifties were
just beginning to consolidate into the farms of today.

My father in law farmed in the Palouse Country of eastern Washington.  His
father was a teamster for the logging companies and those 40 horse combines.
My father-in-law likes horses and kept them on the farm but he told me
several times that one of his favorite times in farming was when they put
the last work team out to pasture.

My father farmed 240 acres of Missouri bottom land and some rolling hills,
my father in law farmed 5000 acres.  My cousin currently farms 1400 acres of
Mississippi River bottom land near Canton, MO in a Corn, Soybeans, Corn
rotation.  My wife's cousin farms something around 14,000 acres Wheat,
Lentils, and Split Peas near Colfax, WA.

Don Bowen  KI6DIU
New ruralize pages, follow the link off http://www.ruralize.com
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html