Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joan Osland Graffius who wrote (22781)	8/17/2002 9:49:53 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

What machines and fertilizer are you talking about? Please be specific in your response. Hi Joan - I doubt very much that I could be specific enough for you, as your family is in the farming business, and all I am is an historian who's lived in the suburbs all her life. In 1918, Haber got the Nobel for combining atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen, which produced ammonia which could be converted to nitrogenous fertilizer. In the early 1920's, Henry Ford and International Harvester both mass produced cheap gasoline powered tractors that were very popular. Deere, Massey-Harris, and Case were competitors. The GP design became popular in the mid-20's and was the standard design by 1930. Nice chart on this site showing the decline of horses and mules, and the ascendency of tractors. eh.net From that site: >>The farm tractor had made a major impact on the social and economic fabric of the United States. By increasing the productivity of agricultural labor, mechanization freed up millions of farm operators, unpaid family workers, and farm hands. After the Second World War, many of these people relocated to the growing cities across the country and provided technically-skilled, hard-working labor to the manufacturing and service industries. Millions of others remained in rural areas, working off-farm either part-time or full-time in a variety of professions. The landscape of the country has changed as a result. Farms have grown larger as one proprietor can manage to cultivate the land that several families would have worked in 1900. Small market towns, especially in the Plains states, have almost ceased to exist as the customer base for local businesses has dwindled. Land formerly devoted to raising and feeding horses has been converted to alternate uses or reverted to grassland or forest. Several generations of agricultural families have experienced the sadness of giving up the farm and the rural way of life. On balance, however, the tractor has had a markedly positive economic impact. Horses and mules, while providing farm power, ate up more than twenty percent of the food they helped farmers grow! By replacing them with machines that consumed much less expensive quantities of fuel, oil, and hydraulic fluid, farmers were able to reduce their costs and pass these social savings along to food buyers. More importantly, the millions of farm workers freed up by the technology were able to contribute their labor elsewhere in the economy, creating large economic benefits.<<