FARM MACHINERY 181 



Deere made his first steel plow in 1833. Patents on the 

 reaper were granted to Obed Hussey in 1833 and to Cyrus 

 W. McCormick in 1834. The two-horse cultivator was first 

 used about 1861. The first patent on a drill granted to an 

 American was in 1799, but the force feed for a drill was not 

 patented until 1851. The first patent on a corn planter 

 came in 1839. 



These machines did not come into general use until many 

 years after the date of the first patents. The old men of 

 to-day can remember the hand methods which prevailed 

 throughout the country during their boyhood and young 

 manhood. The opening of large areas of rich agricultural 

 land to settlement in the United 

 States during the middle of the 

 century, followed by the scarcity 

 of workers caused by the Civil 

 War, were no doubt the im- 

 portant influences in bringing 



r t . Fig. 99. The sickle and the 



about a rapid introduction Of cradle, hand tools for harvest- 

 farm machinery. 



The influence of the introduction of farm machinery on 

 agriculture has been stupendous and far-reaching. Some of 

 the direct effects produced will now be set forth. 



Change in Farm Labor. When hand methods prevailed, 

 the labor of the farm was performed largely by slaves or the 

 cheapest form of labor. From the beginning, the cultiva- 

 tion of the soil has been synonomous with deadening toil 

 and drudgery. The introduction of farm machinery has 

 changed this entirely, a fact which is emphasized by the com- 

 parison of the harvesting of grain with a modern self -binding 

 harvester with the old method of cutting with the sickle or 

 cradle and binding by hand; or the threshing of grain with 

 a modern threshing machine equipped with self-feeder, 



