The Use of Agricultural Machinery In your country (Mix)

In the United States we take the production of food very seriously. We also take the production of cotton so seriously that it took a revolution of the Civil War to control the use of slaves to pick the cotton off the fields. Now thanks to the use of agricultural machinery many social problems have ended and the production of food has increased and the cotton industry is thriving once again. America’s food production feed half the world with our grain and corn. Our cotton is of the highest grade. America is extremely proud of the agricultural engineering wizards who have invented the spectacular machinery that now does most of the work on any farm that produces just about everything.

In colonial times cotton cloth was more expensive than linen because it was picked by hand and another person then had to pick the seeds out of the fibers. They were happy if they successfully did that task to about one pound of cotton per day. That represented a very low production rate.  In 1793 Eli Whitney built a machine that had wheels with sharp teeth that separated the cotton balls from the seeds that when put through the machine, the teeth made the seed fall out of the balls.  This one agricultural machine changed the entire industry. Now 1,000 pounds of cotton were being separated in the same time it took slaves to do only 5 pounds by hand. More importantly, the machine helped to end slavery and increase production in the cotton industry.

In farming grain, the hardest part of farming was getting the grain out of the fields. People were used to performing   that tedious task throughout the 1700’s by hand. The British tried but failed to create effective machines but the Reaper/Binder machine that Cyrus McCormick   invented in the 1830’s successfully took the small grains off the plants and in 1857 the   Marsh brothers invented a canvas binding system that tied the bundles of grain.  These early machines were the foundation for the systems we still use today only even more automated and computerized.  They since has changed from using wires to tie the bundles together to twine a safer tying product for both crops and animals.

The next most important machinery invention that took the agricultural industry from having many people out working hard in the fields to now having just a few employees working large machines in the fields of grain is the thresher.  When grain was being cut in the fields by hand it was a slow and hard process. Then it was equally difficult to take the grains off the stems of the plant. Now they use thresher machines that were also invented in the mid 1800’s that have been perfected to take the grains off and separate and pulverize the stems so that there is no waste of anything.

Good efficient machines are the key to a successful clean and productive farming business. Food is expensive now and it takes a well -oiled machine not to waste anything and America is on top of perfecting these basic machines that seem to do just about everything needed to be done out on the fields of America.