Ground Drive for Farm Machines

Ground driven machines were a huge technical innovation of the 19th Century. Like the early 20th Century ground driven binder shown above, many could do amazing things just by being pulled. They had existed in various forms prior to the Civil War, but really took off in prolific profusion from 1865 to the 1930's. They allowed the movement of an ox, horse or even human to be transmuted into mechanical power to do work. Their power usually came from the force provided by a large drive wheel (see above) that provided power to various gear assemblies. These devices proliferated and dominated up until that key watershed period of World War Two when technology took a great leap and American agriculture, like American society, moved to an infrastructure supported by petroleum .

After World War Two, ground drive was largely replaced by things such as "pto" (power take off) drives on tractors and other machines. This was a great boon for farmers since continuous power could be applied to a job regardless of whether the horse or machine was moving at the time.

As we reflect on the ever increasing costs of a world driven by fossil fuels, I wonder if some of the solutions to the future don't lie in technologies of the past. If petroleum dissapeared tommorow, we would have a hard time continuing to produce food in the manner we do today. Not only are agricultural machines fueled by petroleum, but many of the fertilizers and chemicals that allow it to prosper as well are products of petroleum.

In the roughly 100 years since the peak of ground driven agricultural machines, technology has advanced exponentially in regards to wheels, tires, gear drives and lubricants. It may be possible to create amazingly efficient ground drives using a blend of new and old technologies. Amazing new products driven by human or animal power geared correctly, could require as little effort as pushing or pulling something with an engine. This type of thinking could also open new avenues for modern battery technology to be coupled with ground drives to generate power to do something totally different. In short, thinking about old technologies in new ways could provide alternative solutions to future problems.

One of the most amazing examples of late 19th and early 20th century ground drive in action is to watch the complex processes of a grain binder in action. What innovations could over a century of technical innovation bring to a tool like this?