New Tech + Plains Farming

• Problems faced by farmers on the plains

  • Lack of trees for burning or building
  • Hot summers and low rainfall leading to drought and crop failure
  • Extreme weather and wildlife destroying crops, e.g., buffalo trampling through crops
  • Deep grassroots breaking plows
  • Cold winters making survival difficult with little firewood
• Less innovative solutions to problems

  • Using tree roots to produce sod houses
  • Finding alternative sources of fuel like buffalo chips (cow pats)
• Wind pumps


  1. First invented by David Halliday in 1854

  2. Self-governing windmill pumping water from underground by pointing into the wind

  3. Water used for drinking, watering plants, animals, and irrigation

  4. Advantages: pumping water from wells up to 30 feet deep, steel blades for withstanding winds, more powerful pumps developed by 1880

  5. Drawbacks: some wells deeper than 30 feet, early pumps needing constant oiling and maintenance
• Barbed wire was not invented until 1874 by Joseph Glidden
• Advantages of barbed wire

  • Allowed homesteaders to fence off their land from animals
• Barbed wire made it easier to build large fences on the plains where wood was scarce
• Large fences with barbed wire were invented by Joseph Glidden in 1874 and allowed homesteaders to fence off their land from animals
• Building fences with barbed wire

  Wooden poles driven into the ground, threaded between with lengths of barbed wire
• Barbed wire


  • Far cheaper, easier, and quicker to build than wooden fencing
  • Highly effective in keeping animals off homesteads
  • Used by ranchers to keep their livestock in
• Barbed wire was far cheaper, easier, and quicker to build than wooden fencing
• Barbed wire was highly effective in keeping animals off homesteads where they might damage crops
• Barbed wire was widely used only from the 1880s when it was one-tenth of the original cost of the wire from 1874
• Early barbed wire rusted, and this was only solved later with protective coverings
• Prairie roots grew deep and thick, often breaking traditional iron plows
• Early sodbuster steel plows worked better but were slow and expensive when first used in the 1830s
• The sulky plow, invented in 1875, was effective in ploughing through tough weeds and prairie grass
• Sulky plow


  • Strong, easy to operate, ride-on plow with a seat
  • Effective in ploughing through tough weeds and prairie grass
• The sulky plow was strong enough to plow through the tough prairie grass and weeds
• Early sulky plows were unstable on bumpy ground and could dangerously tip over if not careful
• First six years of production, fifty thousand sulky plows were sold
• Six times as many walking plows were sold during the same time as people were more used to how they worked and they were a lot cheaper
• New technology helped solve the problems of plains farming: lack of water was helped by wind pumps, lack of wood was helped by barbed wire, tough grassroots were overcome by the sulky plow
• Railroads played a crucial role in bringing new technology to the plains