C&T Publications Eye on Fine Art Photography - July 2014 | Page 59

Nothing Says Rural America Like A Tractor
By Cindy Nunn

For centuries our ancestors used the most basic and rudimentary tools available for breaking the land to plant crops, from sharp rocks
to sticks. Eventually the hoe was invented by some enterprising farmer who probably got fed up with his digging sticks being used as
tinder wood for the nightly tribal fires. Well, maybe it didn't happen exactly like that, but it could have! What we do know is that the
hoe was mentioned in ancient Sumerian texts, pre-dynastic Egyptian art and was also written about in the Code of Hammurabi.
Sometime between 2500 and 2000 BCE the ard, a very simple form of the plow, was invented. These early plows relied on the use of
human power. At some point man got tired of this backbreaking method and realized that maybe those lazy horses and oxen lolling
around in the pasture could be put to good use and the frame plow was born.
As great as the frame plow was it was still hard backbreaking work, and it was hard on the human, too. The horses and oxen began to
make demands. They wanted to form unions, have regular breaks for meals and a smoke and they wanted their hooves massaged at
the end of the day. It was regular anarchy it was! In 1799 a North Yorkshire, England hay farmer, whose name has remained
anonymous all these years, found that a steam engine could be used to drive a threshing machine. Soon, the horse and oxen could be
seen lazily lolling about in the pasture again, and on certain nights when the air is still and quiet, you just might hear the horse and
oxen reverently whispering the deeds of their savior.
The steam engine soon lead to the development of the semi-portable steam engine, designed in 1812 by Richard Trevithick, and from
there the development of the modern tractor grew.
In 1912 the Deere & Company president made a decision that would make John Deere a household name in the United States. He
expanded the company into the tractor business, with their most popular model being the Dain All-Wheel-Drive, but the company
eventually decided to stop designing their own and just bought out the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company in 1918. In 1923 the
popular John Deere was born! As a side note, during the Great Depression the John Deere Company never repossessed equipment
from farmers.
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