Agricultural machinery industry

The agricultural machinery industry or agricultural engineering industry is the part of the industry, that produces and maintain tractors, agricultural machinery and agricultural implements. This branch is considered to be part of the machinery industry. The agricultural machinery industry or agricultural engineering industry is the part of the industry, that produces and maintain tractors, agricultural machinery and agricultural implements. This branch is considered to be part of the machinery industry. The agricultural machinery industry emerged in Britain and the United States in the 19th century. Until then the common tools of farming were the plough and the sickle. These iron agricultural implements were often made by blacksmiths in the local village, who regularly also acted as farrier. In the first part of the 19th century some of the early agricultural machine manufacturers arose from these blacksmith workshops, such as John Deere who started up with the production of ploughs in series in the 1840s. Other companies arose from the introduction of horse drawn reaping, which replaced the type of hand reaper in use since biblical times. A company as the McCormick started up with building these kind of harvesting machines around the 1840s. And another origin of agricultural industry was the introduction of combined harvesting, threshing and cleaning in the 1830s. The Case Corporation for example started building those in 1842 as the Racine Threshing Machine Works. Until early 20th century most of those machinery were powered by horses. Mid 19th century the portable steam-powered plowing engines were introduced. They were used in pairs, placed on either side of a field to haul a plow back and forth between them using a wire cable. These portable engines were also used to power threshing machines, mills and pumps. The portable steam engines were produced by specific agricultural machinery maker, such as Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies who had started as brass and iron-founder making casting ploughshares late 18th century. Late 19th century in Britain more companies such as Richard Garrett & Sons and Mann’s Patent Steam Cart and Wagon Company developed steam tractors for direct ploughing, but the heavy, wet soil of England meant that these designs were less economical than a team of horses. In the United States, where soil conditions permitted, steam tractors were used to direct-haul plows. Steam-powered agricultural engines remained in use well into the 20th century until reliable internal combustion engines had been developed. Collins (1987) recalled that the impact of the agricultural machinery industry in the 19th century was still limited. He stated : 'prior the third quarter of the nineteenth century the impact of machinery in agriculture was slight compared with that in manufacturing industry. Some operations such as barn work and hay and corn harvesting had been largely mechanized by 1880 but, up to the Second World War, many were still performed by hand labour and large numbers of workers were still required for seasonal tasks such as hop- and fruit-picking and vegetable cultivations.' In the beginning of the 20th century in the UK the Agricultural machinery industry 'although composed of many hundreds of firms, was dominated by a few large ones, chiefly in the eastern counties of England. The total output of the industry was estimated to be worth 6.5 million pounds in 1913, or about 5 percent of the total value of the output of the mechanical engineering industry at the first Census of Production in 1907.' In the first decennia the internal combustion engine; first the petrol engine, and later diesel engines; became the main source of power for the next generation of tractors. Early companies expanded into the tractor business, such as John Deere which bought the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company in 1918, which manufactured the popular Waterloo Boy tractor. In the 1930s new technologies as rubber ties and hydrologics were introduced in tractors and other farm machinery. The diesel engines also contributed to the development of the self-propelled, combined harvester and thresher, or combine harvester (also shortened to 'combine'). Instead of cutting the grain stalks and transporting them to a stationary threshing machine, these combines cut, threshed, and separated the grain while moving continuously through the field. In the second part of the 20th century the production of agricultural machinery in development countries rose rapidly. In the 1960s a country as the UK exported more than 60% of its production to Western Europe, Australia, USA, Canada and South Africa, and main manufacturers started production plants abroad. Another trend was the increased concentration among manufacturers. In the 1970s in the UK six companies supplied 75% of the total output.