Stone to Silicon

Food & agriculture · 1835

Combine harvester

One machine that reaped, threshed and cleaned grain in a single pass.

Hiram Moore built and patented a combine in Michigan in 1835; large horse-drawn versions worked California's wheat by the 1880s. Self-propelled diesel combines later cut harvest labour by more than 90 percent.

See it in the living treeWikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Cereal yield Latest: 4.21 t/ha (2024) Source: Our World in Data

Cereal yields in England/UK since 1275 Latest: Wheat: 7.28 t/ha (2024) Source: Our World in Data