Introduction

Few industries are influenced by as many and varied technologies as agriculture. These technologies are, of course, unequal in influence. Similarly, the numerous branches and types of agriculture represented in this country are very uneven in their responsiveness to technologies.

To forecast scientific discovery, mechanical invention, or the rise of new methods is a hazardous undertaking. To weigh their probable influence is infinitely more hazardous. It is evident that the effects of many technological developments long known and widely applied in farming have escaped accurate measurement.

All this has been recognized in this effort to indicate future trends in technology as they may affect agriculture. Because of the large variety of technologies which bear on agriculture, specialists in fields which have contributed greatly to technological change in agriculture-fields in which there is reasonable expectation for further advance-have been invited to indi

cate avenues of promise. They have been asked to relate these to past and, especially, to recently erected milestones of discovery so as to assist in throwing light on economic and social implications of developments ahead.

Men are not possessed of equal amounts of hope and caution. The sections of this chapter which follow reflect this factor of human variability. Some contributors may prove to have been too optimistic with regard to both future developments and their implications; others are doubtless cautious to an extent that will be handicapping to persons who are anxious to anticipate future technologies with a view to preparing for them.

It should not be inferred that technological change affecting agriculture is limited to fields dealt with here. Such a view would be as unwarranted as opinions that new discoveries, inventions, and techniques will come only in the formalized areas of investigation or only from those who are seeking them.

The productivity of the average worker in agriculture has been stepped up greatly in the past 100 years and this trend promises to continue. The rate of the increase has been almost steadily rising. If this continues to be the trend numerous adjustments will be necessary in the future. And these adjustments will mean social and economic change as surely as the past 100 years have brought change affecting in some way every person engaged in agriculture.

Contributions making possible the increase in productivity have come from many sources and not alone, as is often supposed, from the invention, improvement, and use of machinery and power. Major contributions have come through the introduction, adaptation, and improvement of plants and livestock;

1 This chapter was prepared under the direction of S. H. McCrory, chairman, and Roy F. Hendrickson, secretary, of the committee on technology of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Mr. McCrory is the Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Engineering. Mr. Hendrickson is Director of Economic Information of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics.

Other members of the committee are: H. T. Herrick, Bureau of Chemistry and Soils; Russell S. Kifer, Bureau of Agricultural Economics; O. V. Wells, Agricultural Adjustment Administration; S. C. Salmon, Bureau of Plant Industry; Earl O. Whittier, Bureau of Dairy Industry; and Paul Howe, Bureau of Animal Industry. The committee was assisted by Roman L. Horne, Caroline B. Sherman, A. B. Genung, and other members of the Department's staff whose contributions are noted in the various sections of the chapter. The introduction and the section on Technology: Its Advance and Implications were written by Mr. Hendrickson.

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the increased ability to meet the challenges of insects, pests, and diseases; increase in knowledge relating to the use and replenishment of soils; and improvement in managerial and marketing techniques.

None of these sources has run dry. Few technologies available to agriculture have been utilized fully. Maximum efficiency in farm production has not been reached and is not in sight. It could not be reached without social cost; it cannot be stopped without social cost.

The March of Change

Twenty-five years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence farmers here and abroad were still employing largely the techniques of 3,000 years before. Plows were wooden, crude. In many areas hand tools were favored over plows in preparing soils for seeding. Cotton and corn were planted by dropping seed and covering it with a hoe-much as surburban gardeners of today plant radishes, endive, or sweet corn. Small grains were sown by hand. Cultivation and harvest were performed largely with hand methods.

The cotton gin, invented soon after the Revolutionary War, was one of the earliest of a long series of inventions that changed greatly the character of American farm production. Authorities are not in

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agreement as to the exact date the grain cradle was introduced. However, there is sufficient available information to fix the date sometime between 1760 and 1800. The iron plow came into general use about 1820 to 1830. The hay rake and the first crude threshing machine came into use soon after. An abundance of land was available for crops and livestock. Export markets opened, especially for grain.

The three decades, 1830 to 1860, constituted an outstanding period in the development of farm machinery. During the Civil War, with manpower on farms reduced and the demand for food increased, there were developed or greatly improved the mowing machine, the steam tractor, the grain separator, and the reaper. The war removed a million men from northern farms alone, while needs for farm products increased-incentives to change quite different from those which now exist.

The stream of mechanical improvements continued to flow. The invention of the internal-combustion engine opened the way to development of the modern tractor. This in turn opened the way, to development of more implements. Today farmers can obtain from merchants in nearly every comumnity, or by mail order, a large and growing variety of mechanical aids. Meanwhile, plants have been adapted to meet tests of higher efficiency from the standpoint of increased yields, better quality, and resistance to disease, and to meet a wide variety of growing conditions. Specific qualities in livestock have been stressed in breeding, particularly more efficient feed utilization.

Areas of land that resisted profitable cultivation before have been utilized since the arrival of the tractor. The introduction and adaptation of plants have helped to make this possible. The Corn Belt was moved northward and westward by the corn breeder. The introduction of Russian strains of wheat pushed production westward into dry-farming areas. development of rust-resistant grains contributed to increasing yields in many wheat-producing areas.

The

Numerous diseases affecting plants, trees, and animals have been brought under control or weapons have been provided for fighting them effectively. It is said that every trace of hoof-and-mouth disease, which brought heavy losses and costly preventative measures on several occasions, has been stamped out. of the United States, even out of research laboratories. Changes Affecting Rural Living

Technological development has brought and will continue to bring other primary and derivative influences affecting rural conditions of living and not alone in the fields of crop and livestock production. The automobile, the radio, the telephone, the daily and weekly newspaper have increased the means of com

munication, bringing farmers, in terms of time and distance, closer to each other and to centers of population, education, and entertainment. Motion pictures have affected rural habits and customs. Although they elude adequate measure, their effects on the fashions, speech, and moral attitudes of rural people are many and evident. Rural mail delivery and improved roads have become available to very large numbers of country people. The opening of avenues of communication has meant the breaking down of many provincial barriers.

But like technologies primarily influencing efficiency in production, these streams of influences have not spread out evenly over the countryside. Low incomes appear to be the most important limiting factor in accounting for the large numbers of farm families without telephones, automobiles, radios, electricity, and household labor-saving equipment. Many farms relatively well equipped with modern production tools and techniques are without running water, bathrooms, and electric lights, and other comforts and conveniences. It is frequently said that overemphasis has been placed on production efficiency by farmers generally; that they have passed on their gains too readily as a result of intense competition; and that they have tended to overcapitalize their land, thus limiting their ability to acquire conveniences contributing to raising living standards.

Technology Often Blamed

Technology is often charged with this responsibility. The difficulty is not with technology; it is with the failure of the economic and social system to make needed readjustments.

There are extreme variations in planes of rural living measurable in terms of creature comforts. Wide variations occur in rural housing and the use of household conveniences. Educational opportunities for rural people are unequal in the extreme. Community services vary widely, not alone between regions, but between communities. Resources that form the foundation of livelihood vary widely, of course. These variations point to the necessity of avoiding extremes in generalizing regarding farms and farmers. In considering technology and the farmer, sight should not be lost of the fact that many forces beyond the immediate control of farmers as individuals operate to encourage and discourage utilization of many branches of science and invention.

Although electricity has been very generally used in cities and villages for many years, only about 12 percent of American farms are being served from a central power plant. In Holland 100 percent of the farms are electrified, while in Germany about 90 percent have electricity. It is true that conditions are

not similar here and in those nations; the size of farm units and the character of the agriculture are among the noteworthy differences. Electrification of farms, with public support through creation of the Rural Electrification Administration, is proceeding more rapidly than before. Electrification means the addition of devices and services, many of which contribute directly to increase in productive efficiency of farm workers. The relatively great distance between American farms has been a major handicap to electrification.

Increase in Productivity

In 1787, the year the Constitution was framed, the surplus food produced by 19 farmers went to feed one city person. In recent average years 19 people on farms have produced enough food for 56 nonfarm people, plus 10 living abroad.

Productivity per farm worker increased steadily, and at very nearly the same rate in agriculture as in industry during the 75 years after 1850. Between 1910 and 1930, output per worker increased 39 percent in manufacturing and 41 percent in agriculture.

The Institute of Economics of the Brookings Institution developed an index of labor efficiency in agricultural production, based in part on census reports. Agricultural production per male employed in agriculture during the 5 years centering on 1899 was represented by the figure 100. A decade later the index stood at 99.2, two decades later at 112.1, and during the 5-year period centering on 1929 at 143.1. The index of agricultural production per year of labor for the same periods, it reported as follows: 1897-1901, 100; 1907-11, 97.2; 1917-21, 107.6; 1927-31, 132.9.

The decade of the twenties witnessed a striking increase in farm efficiency in terms of productivity. From 1922 to 1926, production increased 27 percent while crop acreage remained little changed and the number of workers in agriculture decreased.

Studies by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of estimated amounts of man labor used by growers for producing an acre of 100 bushels of wheat, of 100 bushels of corn, and 500-pound gross-weight bales of

2 America's Capacity to Produce, 1934, p. 38 (published by the Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C.)

cotton for designated periods (5-year averages) reveal striking changes over a half century (table 10).

Between 1930 and 1935, agricultural production declined more than 10 percent, owing principally to unfavorable weather. Meanwhile, because of urban unemployment conditions, nearly 2,000,000 people were living on farms on January 1, 1935, who were not living on farms 5 years before, and perhaps 2,000,000 farm youth remained on farms who would have migrated to cities if jobs had been available. This had the effect of reducing per capita productivity on farms. Productivity per worker probably declined 20 percent between 1929-30 and 1934-35, with about one-half of this decline due to droughts.

An important factor in increasing per worker productivity, especially during the twenties, was that as mechanical power increased, land formerly required for producing feed for horses and mules was released for the production of commodities offered for sale. The loss of about 9,000,000 horses and mules on farms between 1918 and 1932-and probably a million more in cities-is credited with releasing more than 30,000,000 acres each of crop land and pastures.

In 1920 the production of butterfat per cow in herds owned by members of 452 dairy-herd-improvement associations averaged 247 pounds annually. By 1928 the average had increased to 284 pounds; by 1930 to 302 pounds, and by 1932 to 310 pounds. In the 5 years preceding the depression the number of dairy cows in the Nation was about 5 percent greater than 10 years before. The production of milk was 25 percent greater while it is estimated the consumption of feed did not increase over 15 percent.

Fewer Farms-Fewer Farmers

Farmers do not and cannot apply at equal rates the products of science and invention. Out of this fact arises one of the most significant impacts of technological change in agriculture.

In some types of agriculture per capita productivity has increased much more slowly than in others. The increase in efficiency has been most striking in the production of grain and hay crops. Cotton, fruit, and tobacco production have been given less mechanical assistance than grain and hay. Most cotton and fruit is still picked by hand. Science has aided the