British Agricultural Revolution - Mechanization of Agriculture

Mechanization of Agriculture

See also: List of agricultural machinery

Abraham Darby I (1678—1717) was the first, and most famous, of three generations with that name in an English Quaker family that developed a method of producing pig iron in a blast furnace fuelled by the much more available coke made from coal rather than charcoal produced from wood. Pig iron in turn was the precursor of cast iron and steel—a major ingredient of the Industrial Revolution. As iron and steel became ever more prevalent and cheaper they were used to make more cheaper metal tools and farm implements and ever more complicated metal farm implements. The production of "cheap" iron and steel was a key component of the mechanization of agriculture.

The main effect of mechanization and the addition of new farming implements, has been the increased productivity of each farm worker who can do more, sometimes several times more, work per day than he could without a particular mechanization. In the 1600s each agricultural worker grew enough food to feed about 1.25 people. Today each agricultural worker grows and harvests enough food to feed about 30 people. The mechanization of agriculture has been going on for centuries as new tools and capabilities were gradually adapted by farmers. Mechanization really took off after 1750 when new metal technologies made cheap steel and cast iron available and the development of steam power during the Industrial Revolution added another source of power on the farms that gradually displaced almost all of the others. The speed of mechanization has often been controlled by the size of the farm—small farms were seldom profitable enough to afford much new equipment. Typically this problem was "solved" by the farms consolidating into larger farms and/or sharing equipment—this process is still continuing today. Nearly always each new invention or mechanical device makes farm work less strenuous and faster.

The tools used by a farmer in the 1500 to 1700s could almost be carried in a small cart or wagon: shovels, axes, hoes, mattocks, rakes, pitchforks, scythes, cradles, flails, wooden plows, oxbows, chains, knives, scissors, saws, hammers, carts later horseshoes, horse collars and harnesses were added as the farmers switched form ox power to horse power. Initially many of these tools were made mostly of wood with the farmer creating them from the raw material available. The first farm work was done by hand with a hoe to cut down weeds and prepare the soil for planting with an axe or fire to help clear the forest for planting. The first animal power to be widely applied to farming in Britain were usually oxen employed to pull plows, harrows, carts and wagons. Horses were primarily used for pack animals and riding. The oxen were gradually displaced after 1700 by large work horses like the Shire horse and Clydesdale horse that were large horses that originally were bred to carry fully armoured knights. Horses became literally harnessed to the plows and wagons when the horse collar was widely adopted for use in Britain after about 1700. Oxen were gradually replaced since they did not take well to hard surfaced roads and were about 10% slower. Horses could be easily shod with iron horseshoes to protect their feet on hard surfaces. The horseshoes would typically wear out in 6–8 weeks and have to be replaced. Oxen could be shod also but this was a much more complicated process since cows have trouble standing on three feet and have cloven hoofs. Despite the fact that a large oxen is nearly as powerful as a large horse and had the advantage that they could be sold for food at the end of their lives they were gradually replaced. Oxen could also survive on poorer feed and unlike horses did not need supplements of grain to work over extended periods of time. Despite their advantages as draft animals cows after about 1800 they were primarily bred for either beef or dairy production and seldom as draft animals. So many more horses were brought into use and almost no oxen were being used by 1900. Starting in about 1850 large numbers of draft horses were imported from the US where they could be raised at lower costs. The horses were in turn gradually displaced after 1900 with the invention of the petrol powered tractor. Many small farmers could not afford the cost of a tractor and continued to use horses till well into the 1940s.

Weeding progressed from a hoe or mattock powered by a man or woman to a hand pushed wheeled metal cultivators with steel or iron blades. The new development of the seed drill that allowed some crops to be planted in straight rows allowed further weeding advances. Cultivators were enlarged so they often straddled several crop rows and were pulled by draft animals or after about 1920 by petrol engine powered tractors whose wheels straddled the rows. For mass control of weeds harrows pulled by draft animals or tractors with cupped shaped steel discs and/or serrated rotating toothed discs were developed to chop down and cut the weeds up.

Ploughs advanced from a forked wooden stick making a furrow (often called a hog plow because they root in and out of the ground) to an iron tipped wooden plow initially pulled mostly by oxen. Depending on the type of soil, a typical team of 2–6 oxen and 1–4 men could plow about one acre/day. Many crops required plowing up to three times in a season to prepare the fields for planting. Joseph Foljambe's Rotherham cast iron plough of 1730, combining an earlier Dutch design with a number of technological innovations, was the first iron plough to have any commercial success in Europe. Its fittings and coulter were made of iron and the mouldboard and share were covered with an iron plate making it lighter to pull and more controllable than previous ploughs. It remained in limited use in Britain until the development of the tractor. It was followed by James Small of Doncaster and Berwickshire in 1763, whose "Scots Plough" used an improved cast iron share to turn the soil more effectively with less draft, wear, or strain on the ploughing team. Most teams pulling plows converted to horse drawn plows sometime after 1850. John Deere's self polishing steel plow, invented in about 1837 in America, was used on some difficult soils or pasture land. Robert Ransome's plow factory of Ipswich, England was producing 86 different plow models designed for particular soils. Many plows had wheels added to the side or back of the plow that allowed the plow to be held vertically easier and raised or lowered easily for transport to different fields. Without wheels the plough had to be either dragged on its side or loaded and hauled in a cart. After about 1800 all these metal plows were made in quantity and at "reasonable" prices because of the production of cheap steel and iron produced by the development of the steel making industry in Britain.

Harrows are typically pulled by draft animals or tractors and are used for breaking up and smoothing out the surface of the soil in preparation for planting. Some harrowing may be done to keep down weeds or as a type of low impact tillage. Harrowing is often done on fields to smooth the rough soil finish often left by ploughing. When planting by broadcasting seed the seed is often spread over harrowed land and then buried to about the right depth for growth by lightly harrowing the soil again. Harrows almost always consist of a rigid frame to which are attached steel teeth (tines), cupped steel discs, linked chains or other means of smoothing or cultivating the soil. Tine and chain harrows are often only supported by a rigid towing-bar at the front of the set. The initial harrows were constructed out of simple wood frames with perhaps wooden stakes inserted as tines to help break up or smooth the ploughed ground to prepare a seedbed. Harrows seldom had riding accommodations provided for the teamsters. After tractors were introduced the farmer sat on the tractor while towing the harrow. Some harrows, often called discs, are made with revolving self-cleaning circular cupped steel discs that cut up, loosen over turn and smooth the soil. On some soils larger versions of these discs can sometimes be used instead of ploughs. Other harrow types that were invented include drag tooth harrows, chain harrows and power harrows or cultivators, which have petrol engine powered rotating L shaped tines. Harrows showed the same progression of wood construction, some cast iron parts, nearly all iron to wholly steel that were initially pulled mostly by oxen, then horses, which were in turn replaced by tractors starting about 1900.

Jethro Tull made early advancements in planting crops with his seed drill (1701)—a mechanical seeder that sowed seeds efficiently at the correct depth and spacing and then buried them so they could grow. Before the introduction of the seed drill, the common practice was to plant seeds by broadcasting (evenly throwing) them across the ground by hand on the prepared soil and then lightly harrowing the soil to bury the seeds to the correct depth. Other seeds were laboriously planted one by one using a hoe and or a shovel. By 1850 the seed drill had competition with mechanical broadcast seeders with a crank that more evenly sprayed seed over the ground. Some broadcasters were combined with a wheelbarrow to allow more seed to be easily carried and distributed.

Over 50 other inventors of improvements helped make his initial seed drill a machine in common use by 1900. It took a century and a half after the publication in 1731 of his Horse hoeing husbandry for farmers to widely adopt the technology. Although a pioneer in Europe, Tull was not the first to invent or use a seed drill; its origins can be traced back thousands of years to the East and China and other parts of Asia. The advantages of the drill were that it was faster and it could be set up to plant seeds evenly to make weeding easier. The disadvantages were it was a new "expensive" machine that only worked well on particular soils and usually did not significantly increase crop yields. Today many seed drills use air pipes that allows the seeds to be blown from a bin to a group of disk "coulters" set at the desired row spacing that cut slots in the ground into which the regulated amount of seeds fall. Behind the coulters are spring tines, which help to cover the seed up.

Manure spreaders used to distribute manure over a field as a fertilizer evolved from a simple farm cart to dedicated wagons or carts that was not used for other purposes. The first successful automated manure spreader was designed by Joseph Kemp in 1875. This and later manure spreaders used a drag chain to pull a board at one end of a manure filled wagon that forced the manure into a series of rotating tines that spread the manure more evenly. The power for the drive chain and rotating tines came from a connection to the rotating axle driven by the tires. They now have manure spreaders of several different types that work on dry, solid and slurry manures as well as irrigation systems.

Hay is grass, legumes like clover and alfalfa or other herbaceous plants that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder. It is typically used to feed grazing livestock such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep during the winter or other times when food is scarce. The hay originally was cut with scythes, dried and collected with rakes and then put onto a wagon pulled by oxen or horses to a haystack where it was stacked for winter use. The first major improvement seen in haying after about 1850s was when the sickle bar mowing head with its many triangular shaped knives mounted on a reciprocating long rod pulled by a team of horses was introduced. The cutting head extended to the side of the mower and the power for the reciprocating knives on the mower head was provided by the rotating wheels supporting the mower and driver. Horse drawn: mowers, rakes, haystackers etc. were some of the first improvements seen in haying sometime in the mid 1850s and on. By the late 1920s these machines were largely replaced by tractor drawn haying implements (many made originally for horses). Growing, cutting and storing the hay can be a long laborious process done two, three or more times per year. Today hay is cut with wide hay mowers and left to dry. It is then raked into rows where is picked up by large balers that collect the cut and raked crop and then compress the hay into compact bales that are easy to handle, transport and store. The compressed bales are held together by baling wire or twine. The original balers made rectangular bales that were typically loaded, hauled and stacked into haystacks by hand. Today, some of the balers now make bales of hay that are rectangular or round and can weigh anywhere from 1,100 to 2,200 pounds (500 to 1,000 kg) each and have to be handled with powered equipment.

Grain was originally harvested by cutting the grain with a sickle or scythe, tying the grain in bundles that were gathered into sheaves and allowed to dry before being brought to a harvesting barn by wagon where the grain was beat with hand powered flails to separate the grain kernels from its stem. The grain straw was collected and then hauled off for other uses. The next operation was to separate the chaff from the grain kernels by throwing it into the air in a wind and letting the heavier gain fall to the floor while the chaff blew away. The grain was then typically sacked for storage or sale. Wagons were again used to haul off the grain and straw. Harvesting was a very time consuming and laborious process that usually involved nearly all able bodied people on a farm or in a village for a period of several weeks.

The reaper used many reciprocating serrated triangular shaped knife blades spaced about two inches (5 cm) apart riveted onto a long metal rod 3 to 20 feet, (1–7m) long, the sickle bar, to cut the grain. The sickle bar's, guard plates mounted on each side of each knife blade holds the grain while the reciprocating sickle bar's knives sheared the grain off. A hair clipper works much the same way on a smaller scale. The cutting knives are protected against hitting most rocks by allowing the sickle bar to move up and down and putting steel projections (called point guards) in front of the knives. If a rock is hit the sickle bar rises as it is forced to go over the top of the rock and blade damage is avoided. The toothed knife blades mounted on the sickle bar can easily be individually replaced if they get dull or damaged. The rotating reel above the cutter bar holds the grain against the sickle bar knives and pushes the cut grain onto the bed of the reaper after it is cut. The cut grain was raked by another person riding on the reaper into rows awaiting other workers who bundled the grain into sheaves. The reaper was pulled by a team of two horses walking at the side of the grain allowing the reaper to by pulled instead of pushed by the draft animals. The reaper driver and a helper that removed the grain into rows for later binding, etc. usually rode on the reaper. An improved grain cutting blade (a sickle bar with replaceable serrated triangular shaped teeth) acquired in 1850 made the reaper much more efficient. The long involved harvesting process was still there only the grain cutting was easier and faster. A later improvement showing up in about 1870 was a reaper-binder that cut the grain and tied it into bundles ready for collection and harvesting. A still later improvement used a type of conveyor belt behind the reel to load the gain and stalks directly into a wagon traveling next to the reaper. The wagons hauled the cut grain to the thresher where the gain was separated from its stalk and chaff. The horse pulled reaper had to stop until a new wagon could be driven up to collect the cut grain.

The thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling, threshing machine (or simply thresher), was a machine first invented by Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in harvesting grains. It was invented (c.1784) for the separation of grain from stalks and husks (straw). Many other farmers and inventors improved the original design over many years. Power for the thresher came initially from a team of about six to eight horses walking in a circle around a bullwheel, which was connected by long belt, which powered all the different thresher parts. The original thresher was stationary with stemmed grain fed to it manually and the separated grain and straw removed manually. The separated grain was usually put in sacks that were sown together by two men who sewed up to 1,000 sacks a day. Other workers were needed to drive wagons to load, deliver and unload the grain to where it was stored and haul off the straw. A harvest crew could be as large as 18 to 30 people with 20 to 30 horses used to power all the wagons and the thresher. One of the first improvements made was to replace the bullwheel and its teams of horses with a stationary steam engine turning a large pulley and a long wide leather belt(s) to power the thresher and its various moving parts. Steam tractors were often made to be primarily stationary steam engines needed to power threshers, etc. and used coal, wood or straw to make steam.

The cut grain and stems (straw) were originally put by hand into the thresher, which was stationary as the grain with its heads, stems and chaff was brought to it. The threshing mechanism consisted of a rotating threshing drum (commonly called the "cylinder"), to which grooved steel or hard rubber bars (rasp bars) are bolted. These rotating bars pulled the grain through the thresher. The rasp bars thresh or separate the separate grain kernels in a grain head and the chaff from the stem through the action of the pushing and bending the grain head against the steel meshed grilled "half cylinder", or concave, through which grain kernels, chaff and smaller debris falls as they break off the stem. The straw or grain stem, being too long and light, is carried through the concave onto the straw walkers to be conveyed out of the combine at a separate outlet. A separate blower section in the thresher blows the lighter chaff off the grain to get a chaff free grain. The grain is heavier than the straw and chaff, which causes it to fall rather than "float" across from the cylinder/concave to the straw walkers. These machines were typically so large that it may take a team of 18 to 30 horses to move them from one harvest field to the next. The large harvest crew of 18 to 30 men typically stayed together for the whole season working 10–12 hour days seven days a week till the harvest was done. The cut grain, chaff and straw typically raised large clouds of dust the harvesting crews had to work in. Usually the women on the farm or adjacent farms being harvested by that crew prepared the meals for the men on the harvesting crew. Additional help was usually traded with other farmers and their families.

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A major improvement was to marry the reaper and the thresher in a single machine called a combine. The combine name derives from the fact that it combines three separate operations, reaping, threshing, and winnowing, into a single process. The first combines were made in the 1850s but it took till after the 1920s for them to become common. In the original versions the bullwheel and its teams of horses that powered the thresher was replaced with large steel drive wheels that turned as the whole combine apparatus was pulled across a grain field with large teams of up 24 to 30 horses. The wheel's outer surface turned the cutting bar and provided power for the thresher as the implement was pulled forward and the support wheels rotated. The swath bar with its sickle bar cutting head in the front of the combine cut the grain as it progressed. The large rotating reel above the cutter bar pushes the grain into the sickle bar and then pushes the cut grain onto the combine's first conveyor belt that delivered the grain to the threshing part of the combine. Soon power for the various mechanisms in the combine were powered by small steam engines mounted on the thresher and the power connection to the drive wheels was eliminated. These engines were replaced in turn by petrol engines as they became available after about 1900. As tractors became available they replaced the large team of horses used to pull the combine.

These types of pulled combines with petrol engine powered threshing mechanisms were used till the 1940s in some areas. One of the disadvantages found in pulling these often massive machines on hilly fields was the risk of overturning these large top heavy combines—an expensive and dangerous event. This was partially "solved" by constructing combines that could "lean" into the hill while their harvesting head was tilted to follow the sloping ground. Many small farmers could not afford to buy these expensive, complicated machines and either hired someone to custom cut their grain for a fee or used what "old" equipment they had. Combines increased the harvest speed, cut the crew needed to harvest the crops from over 30 workers down to today's two to three much more productive workers and made grain "cheap" enough to help feed the world.

The combine harvester of today, or simply combine, is a self-propelled machine typically powered by up to a 400 hp diesel engine. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn (maize), rice, soybeans, flax (linseed) and other grains. The grain is cut by removable cutting heads 20 feet (6.1 m) to 40 feet (12 m) wide designed for specific crops. The cut grain and stem is typically transported to the threshing mechanism in the combine by various conveyor belts. The separated grain is typically stored in a bin mounted on the combine. The bin has a movable auger system to empty its contents into an adjacent truck or wagon. Often the bins are emptied while the truck or wagon matches speeds and the combine continues its harvesting. The straw typically left behind on the field is the dried stems and leaves of the crop with the grain removed. This "straw" is either spread on the field by the combine for future use as organic fertilizer or raked and baled for livestock feed and bedding. The high cost (over USD $400,000 for some) of these combines has led to "custom" cutting where a combine or several combines are bought and run by an individual or company to cut many different farmer's fields for a fee. Custom cutting allows the cost of the combine to be spread over many farmers as a combine can often run over several weeks or months of operation. A combine with a 40 feet (12 m) cutting bar can harvest 80–200 acres (32–80 hectares) per 12–15 hour day and may be able to be run daily for nearly two months.

The first farm implements were pulled primarily by oxen. Stating about 1750 horses started replacing them as draft animals. The most popular draft horses in Britain were Clydesdale horses and Shire horses. By 1900 steam powered tractors began to replace horses on the larger farms. The first powered farm implements in the early 19th century were coal or wood burning portable engines – steam engines on wheels that could be used to drive mechanical threshers by way of a long wide flexible leather belts. These portable steam engines were typically so large and expensive that a threshing crew of from 8–18 men hauled the machines to separate farms where they threshed until done and then went on to the next farm. In a given season many farmer's crops would be threshed. Around 1850, the first steam powered traction engines and stationary engines were developed and adopted for agricultural use on large farms. The steam engines then used were often so large they often used a cord of wood or a ton of coal per day. Before about 1938, there were no large low pressure rubber tires made for farm machinery and all agricultural machinery, except farm trucks, traveled on steel tires.

A tractor' is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction. Most commonly, the term tractor is used to describe a farm vehicle that provides the power and traction to mechanize agricultural tasks, especially (and originally) tillage but nowadays a great variety of tasks. Initially tractors were powered by steam and were typically so large that they could only be profitably used on very large farms. Agricultural implements may be towed behind or mounted on the tractor, and the tractor may also provide a source of power if the implement is mechanised. The first tractors were steam-powered plowing engines. They were used in pairs, placed on either side of a field to haul a plow back and forth between them using a wire cable. Where soil conditions and farm size permitted (as in the United States) steam tractors were used to direct-haul plows, but in the UK and elsewhere plowing engines were nearly always used for cable-hauled plowing instead. Some steam-powered agricultural engines remained in use well into the 20th century until reliable internal combustion gasoline and diesel engines had been developed.

In 1892, John Froelich invented and built the first gasoline/petrol-powered tractor in Clayton County, Iowa, USA. After receiving a patent Froelich started up the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company, investing all of his assets, which by 1895, all would be lost and his business resigned to become a failure. The original tractors when used to pull implements normally pulled farm implements originally designed and built to be pulled by teams of horses.

The Fordson tractor invented by Ford Motor Company and build in Ireland and Dagenham, UK was one of the most popular tractors in the UK from about 1920 to 1950 as it was rugged, reasonably priced due to Ford's well organised mass production lines and showed up just as the manpower ravages of World War I hit the UK agricultural industry. About 1938 low pressure rubber tires were introduced and soon became the standard for all new tractors—they were much more comfortable riding than steel tires, did the job as well and were compatible with traveling on finished roads. Today up to eight large tires may be on larger tractors. The Ferguson TE20, developed by Irish engineer Harry Ferguson, was the most popular tractor in the UK after about 1950 as its small size and its three-point hitch made it a very versatile and compatible with many small farms.

For heavy duty mining, construction or farming work tractors have been developed with "Caterpillar" continuous tracks as built by Caterpillar Inc., Komatsu Limited and several other companies. These types of tractors were first built in about 1905 and have evolved into many different types and sizes made by several companies all over the world. These continuous tracks are typically made of modular steel plates linked together or rubber belts reinforced with steel wires and hard rubber treads in the case of lighter duty agricultural or construction vehicles. The aggressive treads of the metal plates or hard rubber treads used to make the tracks are both hard-wearing and damage resistant. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the weight of the vehicle better than the rubber tires used on an equivalent vehicle, enabling a continuous tracked vehicle to traverse soft ground with less likelihood of becoming stuck due to sinking while providing good traction. When these heavy machines do get stuck in soil that turned out to be too soft it usually requires heavy duty equipment to extract them. This increased traction combined with powerful diesel engines and low gearing in their transmissions is used in bulldozers. A bulldozer is a crawler (continuous tracked tractor) equipped with a substantial maneuverable curved metal plate mounted on the front of the tractor (known as a blade) used to push and/or rearrange large quantities of soil, sand, rubble, or other such material during construction, mining or farming. The size of the crawler is usually matched with the job requirements. Canals, roads and site clearance are often roughed out with bulldozers. Bulldozers also pull heavy duty construction, mining or farming equipment as needed. The aggressive treads of the metal tracks provide good traction in soft surfaces but can damage paved surfaces. These tracked vehicles are about the only tractors left with steel "tires" (tracks).