CHAPTER IX
Influence of machinery on agricultural production
and rural population.
THE INTRODUCTION of machinery into agriculture furnishes the severest test of the intelligence of both the farmer and the farm laborer, and the extent to which it may be introduced depends upon a number of factors which vary considerably in the different regions of the Earth. However, in the United States the conditions were favorable to the change, except in the South, which was cursed with slavery, and a consequent lack of intelligence on the part of the major portion of the population.
In the North there was a population eager to advance, and as fast as the machines could be demonstrated they were adopted. It was so rapidly developing a region that but few rural traditions had taken root; there were no deep-seated prejudices that needed to be overcome. Most of the farmers were land-owners, the proportion of tenants was small, and the number of wage-earning farm hands very limited, so there were practically none to oppose the change because they felt their mode of living threatened.
The early machines were fairly simple in construction and required but little imagination to be able to grasp their general principles. Hence, the
