ABSTRACT
In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the greatest difference between farming in the Old World and farming in the New was that in America agricultural labor was scarce and its cost relatively high. The American farmer had yet to receive the improved tools and the agricultural machinery that were greatly to increase his productivity and to expand the scope of his operations. Many farm laborers listed in the original census schedules were older sons tied to the farm until they reached the age of twenty-one, but planned to break away as soon as custom and law permitted. Some farm laborers were drifters, moving from one temporary job to another, haying, harvesting, picking apples and hops, working on construction jobs and railroads as unskilled labor. Many of the simpler tools the farmer used were self-designed and self-made. Inventively minded farmers had long tried to perfect a horse-drawn machine to lighten this arduous task and to speed up the harvest.
