The Mechanization of Northern Agriculture in the Late Nineteenth Century

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the production of food and feed crops in the United States rose at an extraordinarily rapid rate. (A)Corn production increased by four and a half times, hay by five times, oats and wheat by seven times. (B)By 1850 horse-drawn reaping machines that cut grain were being introduced into the major grain-growing regions of the country. (C)Horse-powered threshing machines to separate the seeds from the plants were already in general use. (D)However, it was the onset of the Civil War in 1861 that provided the great stimulus for the mechanization of northern agriculture. With much of the labor force inducted into the army and with grain prices on the rise, northern farmers rushed to avail themselves of the new labor-saving equipment.

After the close of the war in 1865, machinery became ever more important in northern agriculture, and improved equipment was continually introduced. By 1880 a self-binding reaper had been perfected that not only cut the grain, but also gathered the stalks and bound them with twine. Threshing machines were also being improved and enlarged, and after 1870 they were increasingly powered by steam engines rather than by horses. Since steam-powered threshing machines were costly items—running from $1,000 to $4,000—they were usually owned by custom thresher owners who then worked their way from farm to farm during the harvest season.