Making a Home
A Community in Conflict
Working for a Living
Farming in the Great Corn Belt
Abraham Lincoln in McLean County
The Cost of Farming – Tractors Replace Animal Labor
Corn Dryers
Corn dryers like this one were used to dry selected ears of corn. The seed was then used for the following year’s crop. Dryers became obsolete as farmers began to purchase hybrid seed instead of drying their own seed.
What did it cost?
$820
Cost in 1913$25,431
Equivalent cost in 2023
John Bell applied 4164 (nitrogen, phosphate, and potash) fertilizer as he drilled oats on the W. H. Roland farm east of Bloomington in 1940. The previous fall he applied lime and rock phosphate to ensure the fertility of the soil.
Clod Crusher
As tractors became more powerful, McLean County farmers took advantage of that power.
In 1938 a clod crusher was introduced that smoothed the ground in preparation for planting. By using three units together, tenant farmer Delmer Sutter cut in half the time required to prepare a good seed bed. He also reduced fuel and labor costs.
What did it cost?
$223
Cost in 1940$4,891
Equivalent cost in 2023
Farm laborer Vernon Abott pulled three clod crusher units. His tractor had the needed power, as well as rubber tires. When hard surface roads were introduced in the 1920s, steel wheels damaged them. Rubber tractor tires were introduced in the late 1920s and became common in the 1930s.
Gas Powered Tractors
Gas powered tractors, first developed in 1892, were expensive and big. They slowly got smaller and more affordable. By 1915 a number of McLean County farmers had invested in one.
Commercially produced tractors were first marketed in the early 1910s. By 1917, when Henry Ford introduced the Fordson, many smaller companies were building successful and more affordable tractors.
In Bloomington the Illinois Tractor Company had some success.
What did it cost?
$925
Cost in 1913$28,687
Equivalent cost in 2023
The Illinois Tractor Company started building tractors in 1913 and soon found its markets expanding outside of the corn belt—local farmers preferred the smaller lighter tractors of other companies. The company folded after about eight years of production due to mismanagement of funds.
Combines
Small grain harvesters that combined the cutting and threshing of wheat, oats, rye, and soybeans into a single machine (thus called a combine) were first available in 1930. These machines were pulled by a tractor. Self propelled combines were first marketed about 1940.
What did it cost?
$1600
Cost in 1934$36,659
Equivalent cost in 2023
Clyde Cope harvested his 1937 soybean crop using a tractor pulled combine on his farm southeast of LeRoy. According to Pantagraph reports, this combine reduced harvest labor by as much as 70 percent.
Fordson Tractor
Bloomington’s Thayer Morrow Company advertised the Fordson tractor in the September 1921 Farm Bureau News.
What did it cost?
$625
Cost in 1921$10,721
Equivalent cost in 2023
