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Changes in Mechanical and Plant Technology: The Corn Belt, 1910–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Allan G. Bogue
Allan G. Bogue
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
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Abstract

During the period 1910–1940 some changes were occurring in the production practices of the Corn Belt. Three of the most important were the substitution of the tractor for horse power, the introduction of hybrid seed corn, and the development of viable mechanical picker-huskers for harvesting corn. This paper examines the background of those innovations, evaluates current assumptions about them, presents data concerning the relative per acre savings or additional income involved in adoption, and notes the possibility that assumptions about the economic rationality involved in corn improvement research, as well as the implications of the “dry hole effect,” may require some revision.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1983

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References

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9 Outlines of the development of hybrid seed corn are sketched in Crabb, A. Richard, The Hybrid Corn Makers: Prophets of Plenty (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1947);Google Scholar

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12 On the other hand, if the farmer had held his corn and received the average 1938 price these returns would have been reduced to $2.17 and $1.78. This, of course, ignores gross supply-side effects.Google Scholar

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24 Ibid., Sep. I2, 1924, p. 1213.

The makers of the Belle City Continental Corn Picker, an early tractor-mounted, single-row machine claimed picking costs of three cents per bushel, “less than half the cost of hand picking,” but did not present the details of their calculation (Wallaces' Farmer, Sep. 7, 1928, p. 1223). The advertisements for the New Idea Two-Row Picker in 1929 presented the picking costs of Leo Brothers of Dysart, Iowa, who claimed, after calculating labor, fuel and machinery depreciation changes, that their costs across 345 acres of corn amounted to 3.78¢ per bushel on a crop in which the yield varied from 45 to 75 bushels per acreGoogle Scholar (Wallaces' Farmer, Sep. 6, 1929, p. 1205). See also, Wallaces' Farmer, Aug. 19, 1927, p. 1067; Sep. 7, p. 1223; Sep. 28, 1928, p. 1312; Sep. 21, 1928, p. 1294.Google Scholar

25 The cost functions for two-rowmechanical pickers and data sources are as follows:

1. Illinois, 1928–29:

(45 bu. per acre; hand picking = 9.1¢per bu.)

Kenneth H. Myers, Methods and Costs of Husking Corn in the Field, USDA Farmers’ Bulletin 1715 (Washington, D.C., 1933), p. 12–14.

2. Illinois, 1931:

(42.9 bu. per acre; hand picking = 6.3¢ per bu.)

P. E. Johnson, Reducing Costs of Corn Husking, University of Illinois AES Circular 396 (Urbana, 1932), pp. 3–9.

3. Indiana, 1929:

(40.8 bu. per acre; hand picking = 10¢ per bu.)

L. G. Hobson and R. H. Wileman, Mechanical Corn Pickers in Indiana, Purdue AES Bulletin 362 (Lafayette, 1932), pp. 4–14.

4. Indiana, 1931:

(47.6 bu. per acre; hand picking = 6.1¢ per bu.)

Ibid.

5. Illinois, 1937:

(62.2 bu. per acre, pull-type picker; hand picking = 9.6¢ per bu.)

M. P. Gehlbach, “Harvesting Costs Reduced by the Use of Mechanical Corn Pickers,” Illinois Farm Economics 42 (Nov. 1938), 205–07.

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28 Aspects of the innovation process are discussed in: Rosenberg, Nathan, The Economics of Technological Change: Selected Readings (Baltimore, 1971),Google Scholar

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29 An estimate derived from the 20,029 mechanical pickers used in Iowa in 1939.Google Scholar

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31 The farmer gained or saved per acre: hybrid seed, $3.18; tractor, $1.18; two-row picker, 55¢. See seed corn prices in USDA, Prices Paid by Farmers for Seed, Statistical Bulletin 328 (Washington, D.C., 1963), 97–101.Google Scholar

A hypothetical 1929 price for hybrid corn was calculated by using the hybrid/open pollinated ratio of 1937. The Illinois average yield of 1929 is given in USDA, Yearbook ofAgriculture, 1931, p. 620. Husking costs were drawn from the functions in footnote 25. Considering the middle 80 percent of entries underlying the ratio curves of Figure I where the X variable istime (years), the slopes are as follows: tractors, 4.63; pickers, 3.85; combines, 3.00; balers, 1.97; hybrid corn, 17.7.Google Scholar

32 Crabb, Hybrid-Corn Makers, pp. 174–76.Google Scholar

33 Wallace, Henry A. and Brown, William L., Corn and It's Early Fathers (East Lansing, Michigan, 1956), p. 86.Google Scholar