The Unyielding Furrow, Technology, Nature, and the Precarious Balance of Modern Agriculture

“ Generally speaking, however, the most important farm tractor work is preparing the seed-bed thoroughly and quickly while the soil and weather conditions are the best. And the tractor’s ability to work all day and all night at such times is one of its best qualifications.
To plow one square mile, or 640 acres, with a walking plow turning a twelve-inch furrow, a man and team must walk 5,280 miles. The gang-plow has always been considered a horse killer, and, when farmers discovered that they could use oil power to save their horses, many were quick to make the change. ”

“ And so it was that I practically dropped work upon a tractor until the automobile was in production. With the automobile on the farms, the tractor became a necessity. For then the farmers had been introduced to power.
The farmer does not stand so much in need of new tools as of power to run the tools that he has. I have followed many a weary mile behind a plough and I know all the drudgery of it. What a waste it is for a human being to spend hours and days behind a slowly moving team of horses when in the same time a tractor could do six times as much work! ”

“ Also, the tractor sharply reduced labor needs for the major crops of the United States. Even dairying, least susceptible to this sort of improvement, felt the impact of the tractor in such things as harvesting fodder and storing silage by running loaders off the tractor power-take-off. Since the very founding of agriculture men had discovered only one way to prosper in farming. The farmer had to exploit somebody or something. ”

“ The area expected for harvest as grain also increased from the previous forecast in many of the Soft Red growing States as producers have now fully evaluated the impact from the April freeze. Sizeable harvested acreage decreases are forecast in Oklahoma and Kansas due mainly to excessive moisture and disease pressure along with the April freeze damage. Winter wheat harvest is progressing well behind average due to cooler spring temperatures that delayed crop development and frequent rains in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas that have delayed harvest. ”

“ In contrast, warm, dry March weather in the Delta and Southeast allowed farmers to make good progress with field preparations.
Early-April freezes occurred from the central and southern Great Plains into the Southeast, resulting in varying degrees of damage to emerged corn. April also brought above normal precipitation across much of the Corn Belt and central and southern Great Plains, leaving some fields too wet for planting activities. By month's end corn planting was 23 percent complete, 25 percentage points behind last year and 19 points behind normal. ”

“ The dry weather still continued, and though they had a few showers, the quantity of rain which fell in the month of April, was not sufficient to bring the dry ground into proper order for sowing the grain; a few acres, however, of what was in the best condition, were sown with wheat the last week in the month. This long continuance of dry weather, not only hurt their crops of corn very much, but the gardens likewise suffered greatly; many being sown a second and a third time, as the seed never vegetated, from the want of moisture in the soil ”

“ The drought had seriously affected the hay and root crops, so that the farmers hoped for an early spring as the only chance for keeping up their stock. But, before the root crops were half got in, the October frost overtook them. Some perished in the ground, and some in the pit or stack. I will not dwell on the miseries of the late winter and spring. The story of them will go down to remote generations in our rural districts. It is enough to say, that the mortality among cattle and sheep has been beyond example in modern times. ”

“ At the same time, heavy stress has been laid on the improvement of farm techniques and on mechanization as means for increasing yields and production. A planned expansion of livestock herds and of the output of livestock products has been hampered by inadequate incentives for peasants and by a shortage of fodder. The agricultural potential is limited by the predominance of rugged mountain terrain and by frequent spring droughts that cause extensive damage to crops. To minimize the adverse effects of the droughts, an extensive irrigation system is being developed. ”

“ All the bustle of the great cities, all the wheels that turn in the mills, all the intricate mechanism of industry and commerce, all the world’s work and thought and happiness, depend upon the mysterious and inimitable processes by which the brown soil yields green growth. For all the progress science has made, we are no nearer to replacing these processes by any short cut of chemistry than were the first farmers whose husbandry is recorded in history. If all the little roots ceased for one year to do their work in the dark, the human race would hopelessly starve to death. ”

“ All production is simply overcoming obstacles to satisfaction of wants as we find these obstacles in space, time and form or substance of natural objects. In doing this we are confined to mere ability to move things. The very highest effort of man's energy today but proves the saying of Lord Bacon, “All that man can do is to move natural objects to and from each other: nature working within accomplishes the rest.” This is fully illustrated in farm operations. The bringing together of soil, seed, sunshine and shower, according to their natures, secures the product of nature—a crop. ”

“ The work of natural selection is going on all around us, and haven't you noticed what vigorous weeds Nature is producing in spite of our efforts to destroy them. Many weeds seem to be like "The camomile, the more it is trodden the more it grows." Is it not possible that the scientists are coddling the plants they are favouring? They are doing wonders in the way of producing better yields of corn, wheat, oats, etc., and maturing them in shorter time, but all these better products only tend to fasten on us more securely the curse of labour that makes us earn our bread in the sweat of our brows. ”

“ It is a problem of how to bring the precious rills of water on to the alkali and sage brush. Population is increasing faster than the food supply.
New farm lands no longer increase decade after decade in areas equal to those of European states. While the ratio of increase of improved land declines, the value of farm lands rise and the price of food leaps upward, reversing the old ratio between the two. The cry of scientific farming and the conservation of natural resources replaces the cry of rapid conquest of the wilderness. ”

“ But atmospheric changes are vital things to the plant and to the soil. Where no rain falls, the plant withers and dies. If too much falls, it becomes sickly, and fails to yield a profitable crop. If it falls too frequently, though not in too large quantity on the whole, one plant luxuriates and rejoices in the genial season, while another with difficulty produces a half return. ”

“ It may be taken for granted that any tractor will run and will do its work with satisfaction, provided it is sensibly handled and cared for. Far more troubles and breakdowns come from careless handling and from neglect than from faulty design and material. A tractor that is running and doing its work is earning a return on the money invested in it; when it is laid up for repairs there is not only a loss of interest on the investment, but a loss of the value of the work that it might be doing.
To keep a tractor running is a matter only of understanding and of common sense ”

“ According to scattered Bulgarian press reports the supply of farm [Pg 240] machinery is inadequate for the needs, unbalanced as to composition, and inferior in design and physical condition. Many of the available tractors and combines are overage and obsolete. The situation is aggravated by chronic shortages of spare parts for both domestic and imported equipment. Production of parts is inhibited by its relatively low profitability, despite incentives offered by the government. ”

“ The large capital investment in the tractors and the risk of their premature depreciation or catastrophic loss, was borne by the owner-operators, not by the Company. The owner-operators, rather than Oklahoma, stood the risk of a rise in variable costs such as fuel, repairs and maintenance of the tractors in good operating condition, and living expenses, although the thirty-day cancellation privilege, taken together with the possible bargaining power of the owner-operators en bloc, may have affected the degree to which that burden was actually shifted. ”

“ Under present conditions farm tractors are not intended to replace horse power entirely but to precede horses to smooth the rough places that horses may follow with the lighter machines to add the finishing touches. Light tractors are being made, and they are growing in popularity, but the real business of the farm tractor is to do the heavy lugging—the work that kills horses and delays seeding until the growing season has passed. The actual power best suited to the individual farm can only be determined by the nature of the land and the kind of farming. ”

“ High speed should be used for light work or for moving from place to place, but the engine should never be run at a greater number of revolutions than that specified by the manufacturers. It is very poor policy to run the tractor fast over rough roads, as the pounding will inevitably injure it.
Cold weather changes conditions in the handling and operation of a tractor; there is difficulty in starting, lubrication is likely to be faulty, and there is danger of breakage in engine, radiator, and air washer through freezing. ”

“ This wonderful adaptability of the tractor can be exploited to its full advantage on big farms only, where there is enough work for it. On the other hand, it is too expensive for the small farmer to buy.
The farm tractor was the missing link in the combination that made it possible to manage agriculture on a big scale and along strictly capitalistic business lines. Therefore, every improvement of the farm tractor will strengthen and hasten the passing of the small farmer. ”

“ In much of the work done by the tractor, the varying conditions of field and soil make a continual change in the load, and the tractor must be handled accordingly. The change from an uphill to a downhill haul, and from sand or light loam to gumbo, will require the gears to be shifted in order that the engine may neither labor nor race in keeping the outfit at its work. ”

“ It took one to drive the car and one to ride the plow. It didn't replace the horse in the field half as well as the Reo car replaced the horse on the road. Yet it filled in somewhat when feed was scarce and horses were tired. This monster didn't have to stop and rest, just stop to get water and cool off. As a tractor it wasn't so hot—it only got hot.
We didn't spend all of our time at hard work on the farm. Come Saturday afternoon, if we were pretty well caught up with our farm work, we would spend an hour or two in Lamesa. ”

“ After a day’s journey through the country a very observant and thoughtful man will be forced to acknowledge that a great many farmers do not seem to think. The amount of high-priced machinery allowed to rust and ruin in the fields, the haphazard way in which grain and hay is stacked, the utter indifference displayed in plowing land and laying off rows, the disregard that is paid to the washing away of the soil, soil that was thousands of years in forming, the fertility of which depends upon the actions of the elements for generations; a soil that, when once gone, is gone forever. ”

“ This machinery is to include more powerful tractors and grain combines, milking machines, and sprinkler irrigation systems. Machinery is also to be provided for the harvesting of corn, sugar beets, cotton, rice, fruits, and vegetables and for the harvesting and processing of feed crops. Adequate information on the progress of the mechanization program during the first two years of the five-year period is not available, but there is evidence that shortages of spare parts and trained operators continued to immobilize substantial numbers of farm machines. ”

“ The new farm mechanization was, in many cases, not particularly well adapted to the family farm in this period. Gasoline-powered tractors, harvesters and other equipment worked most economically on the large, level acres of midwestern farms, and the east coast farmer with modest landholdings could not hope to compete on the market with the streamlined efficiency of western farms. Mechanized farming was also capital intensive. ”

“ The chief danger to the dry-farmer is that he will permit the early spring days to slip by until, when at last he begins spring cultivation, a large portion of the stored soil-water has been evaporated. It may be said that deep fall plowing, by permitting the moisture to sink quickly into the lower layers of soil, makes it possible to get upon the ground earlier in the spring. In fact, unplowed land cannot be cultivated as early as that which has gone through the winter in a plowed condition
If the land carries a fall-sown crop, early spring cultivation is doubly important. ”

“ In recent dry-farm experience it has been fairly completely demonstrated that, providing the soil is well stored with water, crops will mature even if no rain falls during the growing season. Naturally, under most circumstances, any rains that may fall on a well-prepared soil during the season of crop growth will tend to increase the crop yield, but some profitable yield is assured, in spite of the season, if the soil is well stored with water at seed time. ”

“ When soils have been robbed through the greed of man, nature is handicapped in her effort to restore fertility by the absence of the best seeds. Man's intelligent assistance is a necessity. Successful farming involves such assistance of nature that the percentage of vegetable matter in the soil shall be made high and kept high. There must be such selection of plants for this purpose that the organic matter will be rich in fertility, and at the same time their growth must fit into a scheme of crop production that can yield profit to the farmer. ”

“ On a diet of living things in a natural ecology even very difficult species began breeding.
Organic and biological farmers consider modern "scientific" farming practices to be a similar situation. Instead of imitating nature's complex stability, industrial farmers use force, attempting to bend an unnaturally simplified ecosystem to their will. As a result, most agricultural districts are losing soil at a non-sustainable rate and produce food of lowered nutritional content, resulting in decreasing health for all the life forms eating the production of our farms. ”

“ In fact, it is very doubtful if the reclamation of the great arid and semiarid regions of the world would have been possible a few decades ago, before the invention and introduction of labor-saving farm machinery. It is undoubtedly further a fact that the future of dry-farming is closely bound up with the improvements that may be made in farm machinery. Few of the agricultural implements on the market to-day have been made primarily for dry-farm conditions. The best that the dry-farmer can do is to adapt the implements on the market to his special needs. ”

“ These realities require agricultural systems that focus as much attention on people as they do on technology, as much on resources as on production, as much on the long term as on the short term. Only such systems can meet the challenge of the future. ”