MIDDLE WESTERN AGRICULTURAL, HISTORY 323 



less studied, by historians. The same thinp may be said of farm 

 buildings, horse and other draft power, implements an<i maohin- 

 er}% fences, seeds, feeds, and other equipment. 



Although the process of mechanizing agriculture has probably 

 gone farther and been of more general influence in the Mi«ldlo 

 West than in any other region of the Vnited States, the history 

 of agricultural implements and machinery has scarcely been 

 touched by historians. With the steel plow the pioneers were 

 enabled to subdue the ])rairies, and with the reaper they made 

 them the veritable breadbasket of the nation. However, aside 

 from the monograph by Leo Rogin, the articles by Russell H. 

 Anderson, and the biography by W. T. Hutchinson, the detailed 

 and accurate history of these and the many other machines re- 

 mains largely untold.-* There is special need for studies that give 

 attention to the results of the various steps in mechanization." 

 In discussing the effects of technological and scientific improve- 

 ments in agriculture Secretary Henry A. Wallace has said: 

 "When we keep in mind the ancient nature of agriculture and 

 compare increases in efficiency in agriculture with that part of 

 city industry which is similarly ancient, we discover that agri- 

 culture has increased much more in efficiency than industry."** 

 One speaks of the family-sized farm and discusses the desirability 

 of instituting governmental policies that may preserve it. But 

 already mechanization plus economic and geographic forces have 

 compelled many modifications of that traditional unit. Is it not 

 conceivable that detailed and discerning studies of the effects of 

 mechanization would indicate the undesirability, economically 



s» Leo Rofrin, TTt** Introdiwtian of Farm Machinery in its Relation to thr Produc- 

 tivity of Labor in the Agrtculture of the United States during the Sinetemth Ctf»- 

 tury, Universitif of California Publications in Eeoru>mies (Berkeley, 1931), IX; 

 Ruasell H. Anderson, "The Technical Ancestry of Grain-Milling Dericea," Mechan- 

 ical Engineering (New York), L^^I (1935), 611-617, and id., "Grain Drills 

 Through Thirty Nine Centuries," Aprieultural History, X (1936), 157-205; William 

 T. HuUhinson, Cyrus Hall McCi>rmiel- (New York. 1930 35), 2 vols. 



'♦Lewis C. Gray, "Agricultural Machinery," Encyclopedia of the Soeiai Scienctt 

 (New York, 1930), I, 551 553; Herbert A. Kellar, "The Reaper as a Factor in tli* 

 Derelopment of tha Agriculture of Illinois, 1634-1 A65," Transactions of the Ulinoit 

 State HiMtorieal Society (Springfield), No. 34 (1927), 105-114. 



"See his renew of A. Parmalee Prentice's Breeding Profitable Dairy Cattle, io 

 the Saturday Reviev of Literature (New York), XI (March 23, 1935), 563. 



