question_answer 13)

What were the advantages and disadvantages of the use of mechanical harvesting machines in the USA?  

Answer:

Advantages The new machines helped in breaking the hard ground with tractors and disk ploughs, clearing vast stretches for wheat cultivation. The mechanical reaper involved by Cyrus McCormick Cormic could cut in one day as much as five men could cut with cradles and 16 men with sickles. With a combined harvester 500 acres of wheat could be harvested in two weeks. With power driven machinery four men could plough, seed and harvest 2,000 to 4,000 acres of wheat in just two weeks.   Disadvantages (i) Unemployment Introduction of machines reduced the need for labour leading to unemployment on a large scale.   (ii) Unpaid Debts Many poor farmers in USA had bought machines by taking loans from banks, but due to increased production there was surplus of food grains and storehouses overflowed. Prices fell, export collapsed, leading to an agrarian depression, due to which the farmers could not pay back the bank loans. So, they deserted their farms and looked for jobs elsewhere.   (iii) Dust Bowl To expand cultivation, tractors had turned the soil over and broken the sod into dust. Over a period of time, overuse turned the whole region into a dust bowl, leading to terrifying dust storms called 'black blizzards' which blinded and choked the people; the animals were suffocated to death. The rivers were coated with dust and the fish died. The machinery was clogged with dust, and there was a huge damage to life and property.