How has farming changed over the years?

How has farming changed in the last 100 years?

• Answer:

  In the beginning.....man put hands to the earth, made a fallow (a thin trench) in which he buried and covered seeds. Over time, man came to use tools; a stick was used rather than his hands to poke seeds beneath the soil. However, crops need air within the soil and around the plants, or root systems cannot expand, so man still needed a way to break the soil. As time went on, man learned to domesticate animals. The ox was a superb work animal, able to drag objects of weight. Over time, the plow was designed which an ox could pull, tilling the soil as the animal was driven forward. Most settlers in the United States could afford an Ox or a pair (oxen), even when they had no cow or horse. (A cow was mostly owned if a small babe was born, to provide milk.) Horses came into use as farmers prospered. Plow horses worked in teams, as was usual for oxen too. For fertilizer, farmers used cow and horse manure. But untreated manure had the possibility of causing disease in humans. Early versions of the tractor and tiller were invented in the late 1800s, after discovery of gas and oil (and processes to drill wells were invented). Machines needed both to run and if these natural resources had not been tapped, the industrial revolution would have been greatly delayed. Today, farms use tractors regularly, both to till land in the spring and to underplow old crops. They also use combinations of fertilizers and pesticides, but in low quantities. Large farm industries use combination plow, tiller, seeder, and irrigating systems to till, plant, and water, along with massive irrigation ditches and systems to regularly keep the plants fed and watered. As well, most industrial farms use pesticides and fertilizers to assist plant development. Like our ancient forefathers, farmers also employ natural elements in farming including sun and shade, land contours, control of soil erosion, rotation farming so one crop won't deplete all the soil's nutrients, bare fields to give the soil a rest, irrigation methods, etc.