Some Interpretations of the Mechanization of Agriculture in the Far West

Author(s): Reynold M. Wik

Source: Agricultural History, Vol. 49, No. 1, Agriculture in the Development of the Far
West: A Symposium (Jan., 1975), pp. 73-83
Published by: Agricultural History Society
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REYNOLD M. WIK

SOME INTERPRETATIONS OF
THE MECHANIZATION OF AGRICULTURE
IN THE FAR WEST

Most Americans believe that the basis for this nation's strength is our
democratic institutions and our technological "know-how." However,
these two themes have received unequal treatment by scholars who tend
to stress the importance of political affairs and neglect studies in the
history of technology. The scarcity of reliable works dealing with

the interpretation of the history of technology in the United States

prompted the comment made by Edwin T. Layton in his recent book,
Technology and Social Change: "There is no satisfactory synthesis on
American technology as yet.''l

The absence of studies in this field has encouraged the perpetuation

of myths which became deeply embedded in the American mind. One

of these misconceptions is the general belief that our rural colonial forefathers were men of inventive genius. This legend assumes the early
settlers were forced by necessity to be inventive in order to survive in
a hostile wilderness. Ralph Waldo Emerson said the early colonists had
"the habit of invention in their brains."2 Artemus Ward insisted

Yankees could "invent, chop, swap, work and fight if necessary," while
Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee bragged, "I could make anything
a body wanted in this world. If there wasn't a new, quick, new-fangled
way to make a thing, I would invent one."3
Although the colonists were resourceful and self-reliant, they were

not mechanical wizards. It is appropriate to ask, "What specific machines did colonists invent prior to the Revolutionary War?" If they

invented any successful machines of any ilnportance, the written records fail to reveal them.
REYNOLD M. WIK is Morrison Professor of History at Mills College, Oakland, California. This paper was presented to a session of the Davis Symposium on 19 June 1974.

1 Edwin T. Layton, Jr., ed., Technology and Social Change (New York: Harper and
Row, 1973), 175.

2 Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1904), 8:141.

3 Mark Twain, The Connectscut Yankee (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1889), 15.
73

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AGRICULTURAL HISTORY

74

It is the abserlce of mechanical inventions in early America which

frustrates scholars. They call Benjamin Franklin "America's first in-

ventor," and describe his improved stove, his lightning rods and his
rocking chair with a built-in fan to keep off the flies. While these inno-

vations were useful, none of them could properly be classified as mechanical machines-as an apparatus of interrelated parts with separate functions and capable of performing some kind of work. John Oliver in his

History of American Technology entitles his first chapter "Yankee Ingenuity," and then proceeds to demonstrate that every tool, implement,
and machine in Colonial America originated abroad.4 In fact, the steam
engine and the textile machinery which formed the basis of the industrial revolution were imported from Europe. Samuel E. Morison, the
Harvard historian, concluded, "The scientific production of colonial
New England was negligible, even compared with Mexico."5 Victor S.
Clark in his study of manufacturing points out that colonial patents
were distinguished from those of a later period by being for processes

rather than machinery, and that aside from Roland Houghton's patent
for a theodolite in 1735, there "appears not to have been a single me-

chanical device so protected in New England from the time of Jenkins

[1739] to the RevolutioIl.''6
Because of this absence of inventions, writers rejoice when, after
scratching over the sparse technological crumbs of two centuries, they
reach 1793, because now they halre an honest-to-God American mechan

ical invention in Eli Whitney's cotton gin. It is no wonder his name is

immortal. Indeed, the most striking aspect of colonial technology is its
sterility, not its inventiveness. As Mitchell Wilson accurately states,
"Yankee ingenuity and Yankee git-up-and-go did not exist in colonial

days.st7
A second myth depicts the American farmer on the Western frontier
as a mechanical Houdini marching in the vanguard of technological

discovery. The cutting edge of the frontier process encouraged mechanical innovation and the family farm became the birthplace of new in-

ventions. Frederick Jackson Turner saw farmers on the frontier as a

"people with a practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to End expedients, and a masterful grasp of material things."8 Arthur M. Schlesinger,
4 John Oliver, History of American Technology (New York: Ronald Press, 1956), 1.

5 Samuel E. Morison, The Irttellectual Life of Colonial New England (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Great Seal Books, 1960), 241.
B Victor S. Clark, History of Manufacturers in the United States, 1607-1860 (New
York, McGraw-Hill, 1929),1:48.
7 Mitchell Wilson, American Science and Invention (New York: Simon and SchusterS

1954), 11.
8 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry
Holt, 1920), 37.

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MECHANIZATION IN THE FAR WEST

75

in l943, insisted the complicated nature of farmer's work during the first
two and a half centuries of life in America provided an "unexcelled
training in mechanical ingenuity."9 Henry S. Commager described the
American character as ingenious and experimental largely because the
inheritance from the frontier made Americans inventive in all mechan-

ical aSairs.l Max Lerner in America as a Civilization referred to the

"inventiveness and self-reliance that were necessary qualities on the
frontier.S>ll

Needless to say, farmers were often mechanically inclined and clever

with their hands. Nevertheless, there is little evidence to prove their
superiority in the inventive field. An examination of The Digest of
Patents published in 1840 shows that the patents issued by the United
States government from 1790 to 1838 were distributed according to the
density of the population.12 States with the largest populations received
the most patents. Likewise, the large cities such as Boston, New York,
and Philadelphia were the sites of the largest number of patents, while
the sparsely settled regions in the back country produced the fewest.13
Numerically the rural regions produced the fewest patented inventions.
Although patent records must be used with caution, they tend to indicate that the early cities exerted a greater influence on society than is
commonly believed.
Nor does an examination of the most significant inventions enhance
the farmer's record. The important inventions of the nineteenth century
were not conceived by dirt farmers clearing the land, breaking the
prairie sod, or working sixteen hours a day in the harvest fields. Virtually all mechanical discoveries were made by men having experience
in factories, blacksmith shops, or in occupations other than farm labor.
George Iles in his Leading American IntJentors describes thirteen inventors none of whom was a farmer except Cyrus McCormick, and he
seemed to be influenced more by his father's blacksmith shop than by
his labor in the fields.l4
Even in the design of farm machinery, the most creative work came
from men not completely involved in farming. The big names in the
plow industry were Jethro Wood, JoIln Deere, John Lane, William
9 Arthur M. Schlesinger, "What Then Is the American, This New Man?" American

Historical Review 48 (January 1943): 234.

1O Henry S. Commager, Years of the Modern: An American Appraisal (New York:
Longmans, Green, 1949), 14.

Max Lerner, America as a Civilization (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), 37.
12 The Digest of Patents Issued by the United States from 1790 to January, 1838
(Washington, D.C., 1840).

13 General Index of the O#itcial Gazette and Monthly Folumes of Patents of the
United States Patent Ogice (Washington, D.C., 1837).
14 George Iles, Leading Americrn Inventors (New York: Henry Holt, 1912).

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76

AGRICULTURAL HISTORY

Parlin, and James Oliver, all of whom were blacksmiths. Obed Hussey,
an inventor of a reaper, was a draftsman. John and Hiram Pitt, who
invented the first successful threshing machines in this country, were
blacksmiths. George Frick, A. B. Farquhar, John Nichols, Meinard
Rumley, and Abraham Gaar were machinists in small shops before becoming prominent manufacturers of farm steam engines and threshing
machines. The fathers of the gasoline tractor, Benjamin HoltJ Daniel
Best, Charles W. Hart, and Charles H. Parr, were practical engineers.
Although studies of agricultural technology are incomplete, it seems
clear that isolated farmers on the frontier made the smallest contribuiion to mechanical innovation. Most of the inventions were made in
the heavily settled regions where more capital and time were available.
During the 1830s, the most advanced agrarian technology appeared in
the South where wealthy planters installed the latest machinery. Frederick Law Olmsted described the Louisiana sugar planters as the most
intelligent, most enterprising, and most wealthy men of business in the
United States.15 A study of Hamilton County, Iowa, in the 1880s proves
that mechanical innovation occurred most frequently on the largerthan-average farm, where the owners had enough money to finance
mechanical experiments. Here the most progressive leaders were city
business men who had tenants on the land.ls The families living in
poverty in the old sod shanty on the plains were in the least favorable
position to become mechanized. Irl a letter to the present author, Ray
M. Billington, who has carefully investigated the westward movement,
concludes, "My own position is that the frontier was not a region of
invention or innovation simply because material tasks and the nature
of the population would preclude this.''17
Although specific inventions brought little honor to Western farmers,
it appears that their real genius was reflected in their ability to adapt
their mechanical skills to new environmental conditions. They ingeniously modified the technology of the past to meet conditions in new
geographical settings. An examination of man's response to the nature
of the world around him brings us closer to an understanding of the
tools, implements, and machines which were utilized in Western
agriculture.
This interpretation is presented by Walter P. Webb in his classic
work, The Great Plains, in which he pointed out that the arid, level,
treeless plains of the trans-Mississippi West provided a barrier for set1B Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (New York: Dix
and Edwards, 1956), 669.
16 Allan G. Bogue, "Pioneer Farmers and Innovation," Iowa Journal of History 56
(January 1958): 1-36.
17 Billington

to

Wik,

10

November

I961.

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MECHANIZATION IN THE FAR WEST

7rZ
-

tlers moving westward. This barrier blocked settlement for thirty years
until the problems of adaptation to the new region could be solved.
Survival from 1830 to 1860 in the Midwest called forth an adaptive flexibility which was reflected in people's learning to build sod houses, dig
wells, and to use windmills, barbed wire, and the Colt revolver. Webb
grew up on the plains where his own experiences led him to understand
how settlers, in a Darwinian sense, adapted to this new geographical
environment. His confidence in his analysis was reflected in his presidential address givexl at the annual meeting of the American Historical
Association in December l958 when he stated, "The Great Plains was
published in 1931 and no more need be said about it except it has never
been revised, never will be revised by me, never has been imitated, and
I am told by the publisher it will never go out of print*''18
Although Webb gave us the keys to unlock the mysteries of American
adaptation to the Great PIains region, he did not venture beyond the
Sierra Nevada to explore the vast territory of the Pacific slope. This is
unfortunate because it has left the Far West without a famous historian
of technology to interpret the factors which explain the mechanization
of agticulture in the states washed by the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
A Walter P. Webb thesis for the Pacific slope holds great promise
because the Far West contairled barriers for settlers as formidable as
those faced by farmers on the plains of the Midwest. Here adaptation by
early settlers called for a high degree of innovation, creativity, and acceptance of change. An examination of the Great Central Valley of
California provides a case study to illustrate the validity of the Webb
interpretation. It can give added meaning to the type of farm machinery which appeared on the farms of the Far West.
The Central Valley is a large cradle located between the Sierra Nevada
and the Coastal Range reaching 475 miles from Redding in the north
to beyond Bakersfield in the south. The valleys of the Sacramento and
San Joaquin rivers contain twbthirds of the tillable farm land of the
state.

The Gold Rush, which brought a third of a million new arrivals

within a span of twelve years, created a severe food shortage in the early
1850s. This crisis drove the prices up to where apples sold for $5.00 each,
eggs for $50.00 a dozen, flour for $1.00 a pound and whiskey for $30.00
a quart.19 The scarcity of food was intensified because few American
farmers had settled in the Central Valley in spite of the favorable comments made about the farming potential by early explorers such as
18 Walter P. Webb, "History as High Adventure," Smerican Historical Review 64
Uaxluary 1959): 274.

19 Andrew F. RoIle, Californis: X History (New York- Thomas Y. Crowell, 1963), 223.

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78

AGRICULTURAL HISTORY

Father Pedro Font, Lieutenant Josd Joaquin Moraga, and John C.

Fremont.20

For farm immigrants coming from the East, the huge valley discouraged settlement because it was viewed as a great American desert similar

to that of the Great Plains. These immigrants usually arrived during the
summer months when they saw dry vegetation, the cracked earth, and

few trees. The absence of summer rains seemed to prove that the valley
was unfit for agricultural purposes. How could crops be raised where
there were only a wet and a dry season? How could one farm in a place

where the grass turned green in the winter and died in the summer?
In 1869, a contributor to the Overland Monthly described this valley as
devoid of verdant hills, green meadows, and comfortable homes. A
brown color pervaded nature with no woods to relieve the eye or streams
to break the monotony of blinding dust which buried wagon wheels to
the axles.21

In this region where nature seemed to be in reverse the settlers were

forced to adapt to the new environment. By the middle of the 1850s
farmers had learned to raise wheat and barley by plowing and seeding
in November after the fall rains had softened the ground. The unorthodox climate influenced the design of gang plows used in the area.
Since there was no virgin sod, heavy breaking plows were unnecessary
in cultivating new land. Lighter plows were built which required less
power to pull them through the level soil. In the heavy soils of the Midwest Eve horses were usually required to pull a two-bottom plow, while

in the Central llalley four horses could draw a plow with four plowshares. These plows featured smaller shares with little curvature of the
moldboards, and a wooden frame mounted on three wheels. If the
frame broke, the farmer could get another piece of lumber, bore a few

holes in it, and the repair was complete. The H. C. Shaw Plow Works
of Stockton, California, manufactured 20,000 gang plows from 1852 to
1886 and the expression "Stockton gang plow" became generally known
throughout the United States.22
However, one of the most dramatic examples of the importance of
the environment on the evolution of farm machinery in the Far West
is the story of the combine. Today this machine harvests most of the

grain crops in the United States and around the world. Why did this
machine prove successful in the San Joaquirl Valley of California in
the 1870s and 1880s almost fifty years before it came into practical use
20John Charles Fremont, Memoirs of My Life (Chicago: Belfort, Clarke, 1887), 1:
34g57.
21 Horace Davis, "Wheat in California," Overland Monthly 1 (November 1868): 65.
22 Pacific Rural Press, 30 October 1886, p. 373.

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MECHANIZATION IN THE FAR WEST

79

in any other grain-growing region outside the Pacific slope? Why did one

of the most important technological breakthroughs in the history of

agticulture occur in California?

The answer lies in the fact that climaiic conditions in the Central
Valley created unique conditions for harvesting and threshing grain
crops. Since virtually no rain occurred from mid-May until early No
vember, farmers were able to harvest their grain in the Seld without
loss from inclement weather. The hot summer air cured the wheat as
it ripened, making it unnecessary to bind and shock the gzain before
threshing as was common practice in eastern states. Since harvesting
and threshing could be carried out simultaneously, the grain could be
cut by a header and the grain hauled directly to a stationary threshing
machine. Of course, if harvesting and threshing could be combined into

one operation with a machine moving across the Seld, a great saving
in time and labor would be achieved.
The principle of the combined harvester goes back to a patent in
1828 gwanted to Samuel Lane of Maine. Eight years later, Hiram Moore
and J. Hascall of Kalamazoo, Michigan, built a horse-drawn machine
which carried out this dual principle.23 However, the damp weather
conditions in the Midwest made it difficult to thresh grain in the field
because it had not had ample time to dry out or cure. As a result the
threshed grain spoiled in the bin and became worthless for grinding
into flour.

One of the Moore combines was shipped to California in 1854 where

it harvested wheat in Alameda County. F. Hal Higgins, the well-known
historian of farm machinery, states that from 1854 to 1876 scores of
blacksmiths and mechanics experimented in building various types of
combines in the San Joaquin Valley. In 1863, William Marvin and H. H.

Thurston built a combine which was improved each year until the
Stockton Independent declared in 1867 that "this machine is considered
one of the greatest labor-saving inventions ever produced."24 Although
individuals had made combines, the Pacific Rural Press claimed that
the Matteson and Williamson Manufacturing Company of Stockton in
1876 was the first company to manufacture a number of combines all
essentially of the same model.25
During the early 1880s prominent firms engaged in the production

of combines included the Houser-Haines Company and the Shippee

Harvester VVorks, both of Stockton. During the late 1880s the Holt
23 John T. Schlebecker, "The Combine Made in Stockton," Pacific Historian 10
(Autumn 1966): 15-22.

24 Stockton Independent, 6 August 1867, p. 3.

25 Pacific Raral Press, 28 May 1887, p. 471.

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AGRICULTURAL HISTORY

80
Manufacturing Cc)mpany of Stockton and the Daniel Best Company of
San Leandro became the most important manufacturers of combines
in the Far West.26

The Holt company increased the utility of combines by inventing a

side-hill model in 1891 which made it possible to harvest grain on the
foothills of the Central Valley and on the rolling terrain of eastern
Washington and Oregon.27 On these combines each wheel was mounted
independently so they could be lowered or elevated to compensate for
the angle of the side hill. These machines had cutting bars ranging from
ten to twenty feet and were pulled by sixteen to thirty-six horses. Today,
an 1887 Holt combine resides in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where the exhibit represents what John T. Schlebecker
termed the "Enal development in the heroic age of animal power."28
It is interesting to note that environmental factors had much to do
with the history of the Holt Manufacturing Company-one of the most
famous names in the history of American agriculture. The four Holt
brothers had established a wagon-wheel factory in Concord, New Hampshire, in 1869. In the following year, Charles Holt came to San Francisco
to direct a branch of this business. He was soon joined by William and
Frank. Then Benjamin C. Holt sold the New England business and
joined his three brothers in founding the Stockton Wheel Company in
1883. This site was chosen because the summer dry weather and hot sun
helped to season the wood used in making wheels. Climate was a crucial
factor in the location of a company destined to become a leader in the
manufacture of combines and the Caterpillar tractor, two of the most
significant developments in recent American technology.29

There is no necessity to prove the importance of the Caterpillar tractor in agriculture, industry, and road building. Suffice it to say that, in
1973, the Caterpillar Tractor Company together with General Motors,
Ford, and General Electric comprised the four largest exporting Erms
for manufactured goods in the United States.30 The question here is why
did the crawler-type tractor originate in the San Joaquin Valley of California? This mechanical notion was not new. By 1900 thousands of
drawings had been made and inventors had filed over one hundred
patents for a track-laying machine, but none of them had attained any
26 Leo Rogin, The Introduction of Farm Machinery in Its Relation to the Productivity of Labor in the Agriculture of the United States During the Nineteenth Cen-

tury, University of California Publications in Economics, 9 (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1931), 121.

27 Pacific Rural Press, 15 April 1893, p. 336. See also Fifty Years on Tracks (Peoria,
Ill.: Caterpillar Tractor Company, l954), 1-5.
28 Schlebecker, "The Combine Made in Stockton," 21.

29 Stockton Daily-Evening Mailv 6 December 1920, p. 1.

30 The Peoria Journal-Star, 20 February 1974, D-1. See also Fortune 74 (May 1972).

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81

MECHANIZATION IN THE FAR WEST

commercial significance. Geography and soil conditions determined the

birthplace of the Caterpillar tractor.
The drainage from more than one-third of California rises in the
basins of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. The flood plains of
these rivers have formed delta lands which comprise 53S,0(}0 acres.3l
The soil is fertile, composed of alluvial deposits and peat land. The
people of the Central Valley recognized the fertility of the delta lands,

but no one had found a way to mechanize the farming there. Much of
the soft peat soil failed to support horses even when they were shod with
special "tule shoes" measuring a foot in diameter.
Aware of the economic potential of the delta, Benjamin Holt built in
1900 a huge steam traction engine fitted with wide extension wheels.
Although this engine had limited use, this experience evidently led Holt
to think about substituting a crawler, treadmill-type track for the conventional wheels. After removing the wheels from one of his forty-

horsepower steam traction engines, he installed a pair of track units and

tested the machine on 24 November 1904.32 The result was the world's

first practical track-type Caterpillar tractor. In 1906 the Holt Manufacturing Company installed a gasoline motor to replace the steam engine
with results that were highly successful. When twenty-eight of the Holt
Caterpillar tractors were used to help build the 233-mile aqueduct
across the Mohave desert to tap water in the Owens River for use in Los
Angeles, the reputation of the new tractor had been established. During
World War I, General E. D. Swinton, the British inventor of the military tank, announced that he had found his idea for the new weapon in
the performance of a Holt Caterpillar in Antwerp in 1913.33 Later the
track-type tread became visible on a variety of military vehicles, as well

as on road-building equipment, bulldozers, logging machinery, and

farm tractors.

Another distinctive feature of the mechanization of farms in the Far

West was the gigantic size and capacity performance of Western machinery. F. Hal Higgins frequently referred to machines in the Pacific states
as leviathans, monsters, and behemoths.

There were many reasons for this phenomenon. The large Spanish
land grants prior to the Mexican War set a precedent which made it
easier for American settlers to secure large tracts of land. Then, too, the
broad, level land in the Central Valley provided vast terrain with vir-

tually no rocks, tree stumps, or swamps to handicap farm operations.

Here mammoth farm machines proved feasible because the dry summer
31 John Thompson, "The Settlement Geography of the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta in California," (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, December 1957), 1.
32

Fitty

Years

on

Tracks,

12,.

33 Caterpillar Times (Peoria, Ill.: Caterpillar Tractor Company, May 1918).

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AGRICULTURAL HISTORY

season eliminated the problem of operating machinery in muddy fields

or land spotted with ponds or sloughs. This guarantee of solid footing
encouraged the construction of king-sized farm machinery. The PaciJis

Rural Press in 1872 described a 36,000-acre wheat ranch in San Joaquin

County which contained a field seventeen miles long.34 The ranch of

Dr. Hugh Glenn in Colusa County included 66,000 acres and produced
a million bushels of wheat in 1880.35
Since the farm implements manufactured in the Eastern states were

too small for use on the big ranches in the Far West, landowners hired
mechanics to construct large machines in their own blacksmith shops.
Eastern machinery was altered to create what was called a "California
style" machine. For example, George Hoag, a blacks-mith on the Dr.
Glenn ranch, built a huge separator thirty-five feet long with a forty-

eight-inch cylinder. On 9 August 1874 this machine threshed 5,779

bushels of wheat, a remarkable performance in a day when threshermen

in the Ohio Valley thought 900 bushels was a good day's work.36
During the 1890s, the Daniel Best and Holt steam-powered combines
had cutting bars ranging from thirty-six to fifty feet in length, while at

the same time the binders in the Midwest were limited to a swath of
twelve feet.37 The Best steam engines were advertised as "Monarchs of
the Field" equal to the strength of 100 horses. Some models had drive
wheels eight feet in diameter, developed 110 horsepower, sold for
$8,300.00, and could combine 125 acres a day.38 A Holt steam engine
working near Stockton in 1900 weighed twenty tons and had drive
wheels which were eighteen feet wide. A picture taken in 1917 showed
six Holt steam combines harvesting wheat on a 2S,000-acre ranch in the
Sacramento Valley which produced half a million bushels of grain.

These behemoths puffing across the field belching smoke and steam
presented an awesome sight, a spectacle which for sheer size in farm machinery has never been matched in the United States.39 Indeed, there
were giants in those days.

As might be expected, the intensity of farm operations in the Far

34 Pacipc Rural Press, 7 September 1872, p. 153.
35F. Hal Higgins, "Men Who Matched Mountains," lmplement Record 11 (April
1947): 69.
36 Reynold M. Wik, Steam Power on the American Farm (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1953), 55.
37Robert Ferguson, "Benjamin Holt and the Holt Manufacturing Company of
Stockton," manuscript dated 2 May 1940, pp. 1-13, Stockton, California, Pioneer Museum and Haggin Galleries Library.
38 Pacific Rural Press, 18 March 1893, p. 235. See also The Best Manufacturing Company Catalogues 1907 (Best Manufacturing Company, San Leandro, California), 6,
Higgins Library, University of California, Davis.
39 The Sperry Family 1:4 (October 1917): 20. This bulletin was published by the
Sperry Flour Milling Company of Stockton, California.

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MECHANIZATION IN THE FAR WEST

83

West created considerable technological innovation. Although these inventions were not as significant as the development of the combine and
Caterpillar tractor, the list of mechanical achievements is impressive.
The first self-propelled combine appeared on the George Berry farm
near Visalia, California, in 1883. This was the first straw-burning steam
combine. The first power take-off attachments appeared on the Daniel
Best steam-operated combines in 1889. Byron Jackson of Marysville,
California, built derricks for use in stacking and threshing gwain. These
derrick forks lifted the grain by means of a block-and-tackle apparatus
powered by horses. His self-feeder attachment for threshing machines
in 1872 antedated a similar use of these attachments in the Midwest by
ten years.
In essence, the Walter P. Webb thesis applied to Far Western agriculture suggests that certain mechanical designs evident in the evolution of
farm machinery in this region can be better understood when examined
in the light of geographical and environmental factors. This does not
mean that all farm machines in the West were unique. However, it does
indicate that when unique types of machines were built they appeared
because of environmental factors. The emergence of the combine and
Caterpillar tractor is a prime example of this technological development.
This approach to the technology of farm machinery in the Far West
seems to hold more promise in matters of historical interpretation than
an attempt to prove that certain farmers in the Western states were endowed with superior brains and inventive genius. Inventions occur as
the product of multiple causation, one of which is the good earth on
which we stand-the environment itself.

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