Reaping the Harvest

Abstract

The goal of modern American agriculture has been to maximize produc tion per acre and per hour worked. The combine, and especially the prac tice of custom cutting, has contributed to both of these goals, but the trade off has been huge capital costs and a heavy reliance on fossil fuel for American farmers. The sight of five combines running through a thou sand-acre wheat field is impressive, but the scale of the machinery and the method of production it represents mean fewer people on the land. Labor is reduced, but social networks break down as permanent rural populations decline. Combines symbolize the best and worst of American agriculture. The development of the first combine in the United States is credited to Hiram Moore and John Hascall of Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1836. Though the machine worked well enough, it never went into large-scale production, and their combine burned in a fire caused when it overheated through improper operation and ignited the crop (still a hazard today). As farmers became more familiar with combines, their use increased. By the 1870s a number of combine manufacturers had established factories in California, but only farmers with large acreage purchased the machines. Most relied on horses and mules, requiring as many as thirty-six animals to pull the imple ment and supply the energy to cut, thresh, and clean the grain. In contrast to the combines of the Great Plains and West, Midwestern farmers typically used steam engines and threshing machines to process their crop. Local cooperatives developed, and farmers pooled their resources for the harvest. Often farmers hired laborers to shock the grain cut and tied into bundles by a binder. Later in the season, a neighborhood cooperative or a local thresherman and crew threshed the crop. This system of local cooperation continued in many locales into the 1940s.