Agricultural Production

     The many agricultural improvements during the turn of the 19th century made life a lot easier for a lot of farmers. Tools such as the steel plow made it possible for settlers on the Great Plains to cultivate the hard sod on the prairies of the central United States. Mechanized machinery such as the Reaper, the moldboard plow, disk harrow, grain drill, grain binder, grain header, threshing machine, and later the tractor would allow farmers to produce more efficiently. The time and manpower needed to produce the same amount of crops was drastically reduced by these innovations, and allowed the United States to become a world leader in the production of grain, rice, and other commercial crops. Cash crops were now farmed by small-time farmers, sharecroppers and large commercial farming organizations alike.

     The agricultural innovations of this period included not only farming tools, but the methods used for farming were also improved. New methods of crop rotation, which allowed one crop to replenish the lost nutrients removed by the previous crop, were borrowed from British Agriculturalist Charles Townshend, or local Biotechnologists such as George Washington Carver.

     The first commercially used grain elevator was invented by a merchant named Joseph Dart and an engineer named Robert Dunbar during 1842–43. The elevators were built as a place to offload grain or rice from a vehicle to be stored for later distribution. Automatic arms were added to speed up the process and allowed faster offload speeds from large vehicles such as ships. The elevators led to a number of silos for storage till needed. The storage silos could then be offloaded to ocean-going vessels bound for other countries or down river barges, to land-based carriers such as railroads, or wagons and trucks for shipment cross-country. This greatly increased the rate of grain trade in the US, and also aided in making the US a world supplier of food.

     Inventions such as the Steel Windmill, which used the wind to power a pump to draw water from the ground, was also a much needed invention in the dry Great Plains area of the country. The droughts that plagued the central US farming population often meant entire crops would be destroyed. Before the invention of the Windmill, farmers were at the mercy of the weather, and often moved back east to Illinois or Missouri rather than take a risk on the dry Great Plains.

Sources:

1. Hultstrand, Fred. 189-? Old breaking plows used in pioneer days. Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, NDIRS-NDSU, North Dakota. Photograph. Gift; Verwest, Donna Jean 1969. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/ngphome.html Sept. 29, 2010.

2. Hultstrand, Fred. 1908. Fred Hultstrand plowing with the big plow, Fairdale, North Dakota, 1908 : using a four bottom plow and eight horses. Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, NDIRS-NDSU, North Dakota. Photograph. Gift; Verwest, Donna Jean 1969. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/ngphome.html Sept. 29, 2010.

3. Pazandak, F.A. 1910. Jack Anderson's Minneapolis steamer pulling John Deere plow in virgin sod : Fullerton, North Dakota. F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collection, NDIRS-NDSU, Fargo. Gift; Rumelhart, Elaine P. 1983. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/ngphome.html Sept. 29, 2010.

4. Hultstrand, Fred. 1909. Four binders cutting grain on Anders Hultstrand farm : Fairdale, North Dakota, 1909. Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, NDIRS-NDSU, North Dakota. Photograph. Gift; Verwest, Donna Jean 1969. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/ngphome.html Sept. 29, 2010.

written by....Nathan C.