Farming

When you ask some one about farming you think of some man out in a field with a horse pulling a one-row plow. The fact is that agriculture has made many improvements over the years. There are new technologies to help your farm operation grow. Some technologies help keep track of land and chemical saving time and money.

Once upon a time back in the day farm equipment was pulled by a workhorse and took forever to go over just a few acres. Horses had to rest ever couple of hours and needed water after that. It took all day to get just about nothing done! Planters could only get about twenty acres a day two rows at a time. A plow was even slower, barely able to get twelve acres! All in all the farmer did gust about as much work.

He walked behind and kept the horse moving only stopping to bring the horse water. There was also no way to kill weeds except pull them out with your bare hands. Ouch! Also with so much work that needed to be done all the family members had to take their own part. This never let them go out and explore other job opportunities.

Then one day along came a world changing machine called the Waterloo Boy.

This machine replaced animal horsepower with engine horsepower to help the farmer accomplish more work easier and faster. (How Johnny Popper Replaced the Horse. 1998 Donald S. Huber and Ralph C. Hughes). This two-cylinder machine, called the tractor, got twice the work dun in half the time. This machine was hard to start and often took two people. The Waterloo Boy was first made in 1913. It eventually was modified in to three different models, the L the Rand N. they all had there own

purposes. Whether it was plowing, planting or field cultivating (getting rid of the weeds).

As the tractor advanced more and more the farms were allowed to expand in

size. One new improvement was the advantages of front wheel assist.

Front wheel assist is like having a 4x4 tractor only the wheels are set at a sixty to forty ratio. This way a tractor with loaders had more traction and allowed them to turn sharper. The front wheel assist tractor was one of the most eye catching tractors and made it too were tractors could go about any were. The first front wheel assist tractor came out in about 1969 on a console model on the 4020 John Deere. (www.JohnDeere.com. 2005) This tractor never made the market because of malfunctions.

Later on the real beef in tractors came out. The Four Wheel Drive! This meant it had one hundred percent drive to both front and back wheels. Once again this allowed farmers to expand there farming operations. By this time farmers could farm close to two thousand acres compared to what used to be a measly twenty-five acres.

Then along came self-power shifting tractors. This lets you have a power shift but if the lug on the engine becomes to great it shifts down and as soon as it can it will move back up to its original gear. Self shifting in best effective when working ground or planting in tough ground. (www.powershifttractors.com. July 12,2003) The speed of the tractor will stay more consistent and allow it to be more fuel efficient, saving the farmer lots of money. Self shifting is also available in quad shifting. The self shifting transitions also made it easier on the tractor, the engine does not lug as much and the tractor does not wheel hop so its easier on the frame two. Thus saving the tractor.

Instead of hooking up the field cultivator to weed your crops about twenty years ago we discovered that you could but chemical down to kill weeds and not crops. Using chemical to kill weeds helps the moisture in the ground and help crops grow even bigger. This helped