What a difference a millennium makes
By DOUG PETERSON
University of Illinois Extension

   At the beginning of the 18th century, farmers were still working the land much as their ancestors had – seeding by hand, slicing furrows with primitive implements and cutting grain with a scythe. But the 1700s triggered a cascade of innovations that transformed agriculture.
   Today, at the new millennium, farmers are using implements equipped with computers, as well as other high-tech gear that tap into orbiting satellites and offer undreamed-of precision. To give an idea of how far we've come, presented here are some millennial milestones in agricultural history, including highlights of a few of the University of Illinois' contributions to the revolution.

1000?
   The Chinese develop the horse collar for help with pulling heavy loads.

1600s
   Tobacco is the first important export from the United States.

1701
   Jethro Tull invents the seed drill, the first farm machine with moving parts.

1730?
   Lord Charles "Turnip" Townsend refines the Roman idea of crop rotation. His system rotates four crops instead of two.

1765
   Englishman James Small creates the first cast-iron plow.

1700s
   Robert Bakewell, the most famous "animal improver," cross-breeds different types of cattle to create the New Leicestershire. By 1800, animals being raised are two or three times as big as in 1700.

1700s
   Meats are stored in glass jars, then heated. This is the beginning of the canning process.

1780
   Scotsman Andrew Meickle builds the first threshing machine.

1802
   In Virginia, George Washington Parke Custis organizes the first agricultural fair.

1813
   The first use of fertilizers is documented.

1834
   Cyrus Mccormick of Virginia patents the mechanical reaper and binder.

1837
   John Deere, an Illinois blacksmith, invents the steel plow.

Mid-1800s
   Many American farmers still farm by superstition. Some plant by the phases of the moon, "just to be on the safe side."

1850
   Jonathan Turner promotes the idea of "industrial universities" to provide higher learning to children of the working classes. Later, Turner helped to found the University of Illinois.

1862
   Turner's vision is fulfilled when the Morrill Act creates a system of "land-grant universities" dedicated to agricultural education and research.

1865
   Gregor Mendel, a Moravian monk, presents a paper on his hybrid experiments on peas. Mendel becomes known as the father of genetics.

1867
   The University of Illinois (then called the Illinois Industrial University) is created in Champaign County after bitter wrangling over its location.

1870s
   Some states begin to inspect dairy products.

1874
   UI's Louisa Catherine Allen teaches "the first college course of high grade in domestic science organized in the United States."

1876
   The UI begins laying out "the Morrow Plots," today the country's oldest agricultural experiment fields in continuous use.

1878
   Anna Baldwin, an American farmer, invents a suction machine to milk cows.

1896
   UI researchers begin selecting corn for high oil content. Today, high-oil corn (derived from a 1956 variety) is grown on more than 1.2 million acres.

1896
   C. Hopkins of the UI demonstrates the effects of fertility levels on crop performance. His demonstrations lead quickly to the adoption of soil tests and the application of appropriate amounts of phosphorus, potassium and limestone to soil.

1900
   The first "corn club" is organized. This is the forerunner to 4-H.

1911
   The first Farm Bureau is created in New York.

1921-40
   Agriculture slumps into a long-term depression.

1923
   A young man, C.M. Woodworth, comes to the UI agronomy department with a seed collection of a strange species – the soybean. He produces the first important commercial soybean variety for Illinois.

1924
   UI researchers field-test International Harvester's Farmall, the first widely used general-purpose tractor.

1925
   American Clarence Birdseye develops frozen packaged food.

1930s
   Breeding work at the UI helps transform soybeans from a forage crop to a major grain crop.

1932-36
   Droughts and dust storms ravage the West. The Soil Erosion Service (later called the "Soil Conservation Service") takes shape in 1933.

1938
   A cooperative is set up to artificially inseminate dairy cattle.

1939
   Paul Hermann Muller, a Swiss chemist, discovers the insecticide properties of the infamous chemical DDT.

1954
   For the first time, the number of tractors exceeds the number of horses on farms.

Late 1950s
   Anhydrous ammonia, a cheap source of nitrogen, boosts crop yields dramatically.

1960s
   The "Green Revolution" introduces genetically improved plant varieties to many developing countries and dramatically boosts grain yields. Improved seeds avert famine in some countries.

1960s
   George McKibben of the UI pioneers no-till farming, a way to reduce soil erosion and cut costs. No-till transforms agriculture in the 1970s and '80s.

1990s
   Precision farming comes of age. The UI plays a leading role in studying the use of satellite technology and on-tractor computers to farm with greater precision.

1990s
   Biotechnology makes major advances with such techniques as gene transfers in animals and plants.

1994
   A pig named "Big Al" becomes father of a line of "transgenic" pigs at the UI. Big Al receives a gene from a Holstein cow that, when passed to his daughters, will boost their milk production.

1996
   Scottish scientists clone a sheep from the cell of another sheep's udder. Dolly is born.

1996
   The first Bt corn hybrids are introduced by commercial seed companies. Bt corn has been genetically modified to have built-in resistance to certain caterpillars, including the economically damaging European corn borer.

1999
   Genetically modified food becomes the center of a growing controversy.

Sources
   The Farmer Through History, by Peter Chrisp, Thomson Learning, NY, 1993.
   Fields of Rich Toil, by Richard Gordon Moores, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL, 1970.
   A History of American Agriculture 1776-1990, by Economic Research Service, USDA Web site, (http://www.usda.gov/history2/back.htm).
   Reclaiming a Lost Heritage, by John R. Campbell, Iowa State University Press, Ames, IA, 1995.
   Then and Now: Farming, by Katie Roden, Copper Beech Books, Brookfield, CT, 1996.

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