Tractor Facts

18th Century: Farming was all done by hand with Oxen or horses for power, crude wooden tools for plowing and sowing the fields.

1837:
John Deere and Leonard Andrus begin manufacturing steel plows; practical threshing machine patented.

1856
Two-horse straddle-row cultivator patented.

1930s:
All-purpose, rubber-tired tractor with complementary machinery popularized

1930s:
The great dust bowl takes hold and wipes out many Midwesterner farmers. Many farms were deemed unsuitable to produce crops. Many farmers left their farms and moved west.

1945-70:
Change from horses to tractors and increasing technological practices characterize the second American agricultural revolution; productivity per acre begins to sharply rise giving way to the modern farmer.

1994
Farmers begin using satellite technology to track and plan their farming practices to help increase acreage yields.