Corn Harvesters
Sep 3rd, 2018 by John Houghton
Threshers, reapers and combines were all aimed at harvesting wheat: efficient corn-pickers didn’t appear until the end of the Nineteenth Century, and weren’t widespread until after World War II, when combines with interchangeable heads, capable of harvesting either wheat or corn, became available. According to Prof. Paul Salstrom, this final reduction of labor costs marked “the virtual end of Indiana’s family farms” (From Pionering to Persevering: Family Farming in Indiana to 1880, 106).
Photo from US Department of Agriculture
via Wikimedia:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Combine-harvesting-corn.jpg
