A Historical Guide to Farm Equipment

Steiger Vs. Deere
See the Steiger Series tractors go toe to toe with the Deere 9030. AdvantageCaseIH.com
Free Freight Quotes
Specialist in Farm & Construction Equipment Delivery. Safe & Reliable. www.heavyhaulquote.com
Used Farm Equipment
Find mfrs. of used farm equipment w/low prices & online quotes. www.business.com
Farm Equipment
Compare Prices And Find farm equipment At Low Prices. shopping.yahoo.com
Farm Equip & Supplies
Find Farm Equip & Supplies in Local Directory. www.usdirectory.com


Farm equipment has gone a long way since its early days. Technology has brought developments that improve the way we operate these machines like the use of GPS locators, computerized monitoring systems, and self-steering equipment. You couldn’t help but wonder how folks did farming during the old days without all the new ways of tilling, planting, threshing and harvesting fresh produce. Read more to learn more about the evolution of farm equipment in our society.

How farm equipment shaped agriculture

The earliest farm equipment that was used would probably be the human hands with the help of  wooden sticks and stones. The more sophisticated hand-held tools like plows, scythes (also known as sickles) and knives didn’t appear until centuries later. In fact, farm tools didn’t have much improvement between the eighth and eighteenth century. When the eighteenth century came, farm equipment was basically composed of the following:

ox or horse-drawn wooden plows – used in tilling soil
sickles – used for cutting
hoes – used in cultivating land
flails – used for threshing grain

Welcome to the agricultural revolution of Farm Equipment

Somewhere around the 1790’s, a device called a cradle scythe was introduced to the agriculture industry. The cradle scythe has a wider blade compared to the common sickle and it is used for cutting grain.  As the Industrial Revolution started, the field of farming headed towards its own Agricultural Revolution. Several kinds of farm equipment followed the cradle scythe’s invention like the cast-iron plow, threshing machine and seed drill. The cast-iron plow evolved into the steel plow designed by inventor John Deere. At the same decade, Cyrus H. McCormick developed the first successful reaper.

The farm equipment made during the Industrial Revolution required more power than the ones given by horses and oxen. This need for more power has made room for the use of steam as an energy source. Steam energy was used to provide power to mechanical farm equipment like the early tractors. There is one disadvantage of using steam engines for farm equipment: these machines are pretty slow.

The use of gasoline and diesel in farm equipment

Steam sure brought life into the tractors and other machines, but farmers wanted more speed in their production. This development came into the form of the gasoline-powered engine and later, the diesel engine. This made the farmer’s work more efficient, since their farm equipment ran faster. This also led to the birth of the combine, an all-in-one machine that does both the harvesting and threshing. The combine and tractor are still used at present.

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