Landbased Engineering History

1794

Cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney

Cotton Gin on display in the Eli Whitney Musseum (Photo by Tom Murphy VII)

1875

AEA (Agricultural Engineers Association) founded
one of the 'founding fathers' of the National College of Agricultural Engineering (NCAE)

1900

Ivel Tractor Invented
Dan Albone, a Biggleswade cycle manufacturer conceived a light weight petrol powered general purpose agricultural vehicle. By November 1901 he had completed his tractor design, and filed for a patent on 15 February 1902 founding the Ivel Agricultural Motors in the same year.

At about the same time, Charles Hart and Charles Parr establish the first U.S. factory devoted to manufacturing a traction engine powered by an internal combustion engine. Smaller and lighter than its steam-driven predecessors, it runs all day on one tank of fuel. Hart and Parr are credited with coining the term "tractor" for the traction engine.

1902

Standard drum brakes are invented
Standard drum brakes are invented by Louis Renault. His brakes work by using a cam to force apart two hinged shoes.

1904

First crawler tractor with tracks rather than wheels
Benjamin Holt, a California manufacturer of agricultural equipment, develops the first successful crawler tractor, equipped with a pair of tracks rather than wheels. Dubbed the "caterpillar" tread, the tracks help keep heavy tractors from sinking in soft soil and are the inspiration for the first military tanks. The 1904 version is powered by steam; a gasoline engine is incorporated in 1906. The Caterpillar Tractor Company is formed in 1925, in a merger of the Holt Manufacturing Company and its rival, the C. L. Best Gas Traction Company.

1905

First agricultural engineering curriculum at Iowa State College
Jay Brownlee Davidson designs the first professional agricultural engineering curriculum at then-Iowa State College. Courses include agricultural machines; agricultural power sources, with an emphasis on design and operation of steam tractors; farm building design; rural road construction; and field drainage. Davidson also becomes the first president of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers in 1907, leading agricultural mechanization missions to the Soviet Union and China.

1907

ASAE founded. The American Society of Agricultural Engineers, now known as the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, was founded.

1908

First solar collector
William J. Bailley of the Carnegie Steel Company invents a solar collector with copper coils and an insulated box.

1913

Activated sludge process
In Birmingham, England, chemists experiment with the bio-solids in sewage sludge by bubbling air through wastewater and then letting the mixture settle; once solids had settled out, the water was purified. Three years later, in 1916, this activated sludge process is put into operation in Worcester, England, and in 1923 construction begins on the world’s first large-scale activated sludge plant, at Jones Island, on the shore of Lake Michigan.

1917

First long-distance high-voltage transmission line
The first long-distance high-voltage transmission line is established by American Gas & Electric (AG&E), an investor-owned utility.  The line originates from the firstmajor steam plant to be built at the mouth of a coal mine, virtually eliminating fuel transportation costs.

1917

Fordson tractor sells for $395 A spinoff of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford & Son Corporation, begins production of the Fordson tractor. Designed to work 10- to 12-acre fields, it soon accounts for 50 percent of the worldwide market for tractors.

1918

American Harvester Company of Minneapolis begins manufacturing the horse-drawn Ronning Harvester, a corn silage harvester patented in 1915.

 Picture from the Minnestota History Center Museum courtesy of cliff1066™

1921

First major aerial dusting of crops by U.S. Army pilots and Ohio entomologists spraying arsenate of lead over 6 acres of catalpa trees in Troy to control the sphinx caterpillar. Stricter regulations on pesticides and herbicides go into effect in the 1960s.

1922

International Harvester introduces a power takeoff, a device that allows power from a tractor engine to be transmitted to attached harvesting equipment

1923

Farm Engineering Research and Testing Unit set up – The Institute of Agricultural Engineering – later to become the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering (NIAE) - established under the auspices of Oxford University

1931

Caterpillar manufactures a crawler tractor with a diesel engine offering more power, reliability, and fuel efficiency than those using low-octane gasoline. Diesel fuel continues to be the main fuel used for agricultural mechanisation.

1932

Rubber wheels result in a 25 percent improvement in fuel economy for tractors
An Allis-Chalmers Model U tractor is outfitted with a pair of Firestone 48°-12 aeroplane tires in place of lugged steel wheels. Tests by the University of Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory find that rubber wheels result in a 25 percent improvement in fuel economy. Rubber wheels also mean smoother, faster driving with less wear and tear on tractor parts and the driver.

1932

First pickup baler manufactured.
The Ann Arbor Machine Company of Shelbyville, IIlinois, manufactures the first pickup baler, based on a 1929 design by Raymond McDonald. Six years later Edwin Nolt develops and markets a self-tying pickup baler. The baler, attached to a tractor, picks up cut hay in the field, shapes it into a 16-18-inch bale, and knots the twine that hold the bale secure. Self-propelled hay balers soon follow.

1933

Hydraulic draft control system developed
Irishman Harry Ferguson develops a tractor that incorporates his innovative hydraulic draft control system, which raises and lowers attached implements—such as cultivators, mowers, post-hole diggers, and ploughs — and automatically sets their needed depth. The David Brown Company in England is the first to build the tractor, but Ferguson also demonstrates it to Henry Ford in the United States. With a handshake agreement, Ford manufactures Ferguson’s tractor and implements from 1939 to 1948. A few years later Ferguson’s company merges with Canadian company Massey-Harris to form Massey-Ferguson.

Picture courtesy of the Ferguson Family Museum

1935

First research on conservation tillage
Agronomists Frank Duley and Jouette Russell at the University of Nebraska, along with other scientists with the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, being the first research on conservation tillage. The practice involves various methods of tilling the soil, with stubble mulch and different types of ploughs and discs, to control wind erosion and manage crop residue. This technology is common on farms by the early 1960s

1935

Rural Electrification Administration bring electricity to many US farmers
President Roosevelt issues an executive order to create the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), which forms co-operatives that bring electricity to millions of rural Americans. Within 6 years the REA has aided the formation of 800 rural electric co-operatives with 350,000 miles of power lines.

Photo courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum Collections

1938

First self-propelled combine
In Australia, Massey-Harris introduces the first self-propelled combine — a thresher and reaper in a single machine—not drawn by a tractor or horse. Welcomed because it replaces the labour-intensive binder, handshocking, and threshing, the new combine becomes increasingly popular. By the end of the century, single-driver combines feature air-conditioned cabins that are lightly pressurised to keep out dirt and debris.

1938

Institution of British Agricultural Engineering (later to become IAgrE) founded
- one of the 'founding fathers' of the NCAE

1943

First commercially viable mechanical spindle cotton picker
International Harvester builds "Old Red," the first commercially viable mechanical spindle cotton picker, invented and tested by Texans John and Mack Rust beginning in 1927. The spindle picker features moistened rotating spindles that grab cotton fibres from open bolls while leaving the plant intact. The cotton fibres are then blown into waiting hoppers, free of debris.

1945

JCB Opens for Business
Joe Bamford opened for business on 23 October 1945, the day his first son Anthony (now Sir Anthony) was born. The first J C Bamford product was a farm trailer.

Photo courtesy of JCB

1948

Centre pivot irrigation machine invented
Colorado farmer Frank Zybach invents the centre pivot irrigation machine, which revolutionises irrigation technology. The system consists of sprinklers attached to arms that radiate from a water-filled hub out to motorised wheeled towers in the field.

1954

Corn head attachments for combines are introduced
The John Deere and International Harvester companies introduce corn head attachments for their combines. This attachment rapidly replaces the self-propelled corn picker, which picked the corn and stripped off its husk. The corn head attachment also shells the ears in the field. The attachment allows a farmer to use just one combine, harvesting other grain crops in the summer and corn in the autumn.

1956

The Gyral air seeder is patented
The Gyral air seeder, which plants seeds through a pneumatic delivery system, is patented in Australia. The technology eventually evolves into large multi-row machines with a trailing seed tank and often a second tank holding fertilisers.

Photo courtesy of Gryal Implement Pty Ltd

1956

National College of Agricultural Engineering (NCAE)
Original Memorandum to the Minister for Education requesting that a National College of Agricultural Engineering be founded because of "an overall need to provide people in the agricultural engineering industry with sufficient scientific training to enable them to use the results of research already accumulating at the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering and elsewhere".

1958

National College of Agricultural Engineering
IAgrE, AEA, AMTDA (now BAGMA) petition for National College of Agricultural Engineering to be founded.

1959

National College of Agricultural Engineering
Announcement by the Minister of Education for the establishment of a new National College to be "devoted to agricultural engineering".

1960

National College of Agricultural Engineering founded
Sir Gilbert Flemming, KCB, appointed Chairman of Governors. National College of Agricultural Engineering founded.

1962

NCAE
January; First Headquarters of NCAE in Broadway, London SW1
September; NCAE opens at Boreham House, Chelmsford, Essex with 20 students.

1963

NCAE moves to Silsoe

1972

Use of Satellites for Remote Sensing
The first Landsat, an Earth-monitoring satellite designed specifically for the use of earth scientists and resource managers, is launched. Conceived by the United States Department of the Interior in the mid-1960s, the Landsat project soon came to involve the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Geological Survey. Landsat 1 went into orbit on July 23, 1972.

Landsat 5 Photo courtesy of NASA

1972

Electronic monitoring devices allow farmers to plant crops more efficiently.
The DICKEY-john Manufacturing Company introduces electronic monitoring devices for farmers that allow them to plant crops more efficiently. Attached to mechanical planters and air seeders, the devices monitor the number and spacing of seeds being planted. The newest devices monitor the planting of up to 96 rows at a time. During the 1990s, similar devices are used at harvest time for yield mapping, or measuring and displaying the quality and quantity of a harvest as the combine moves through the field.

1994

Farmers begin using Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers
Ushering in the new "precision agriculture," farmers begin using Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers to record precise locations on their farms to determine which areas need particular quantities of water, fertiliser, and pesticides. The information can be stored on a card and transferred to a home computer. Farmers can now combine such data with yield information, weather forecasts, and soil analysis to create spreadsheets. These tools enable even greater efficiency in food production.

GPS Schematic courtesy of John Deere

2005

Cranfield University - Silsoe
Cranfield University announce decision to close Silsoe campus and move academic activities to Cranfield site

2010

IAgrE Secretariat and office relocates to Cranfield campus of Cranfield University

2010

Cranfield University – Silsoe campus move to Cranfield completed.