A short history of tractors in English

It was the Chatgpt of its day. “Come and see the tractors”, entreated an article in the Prairie Farmer in 1915, advertising a trade show in Illinois showing off the new tech. “It will mark a new epoch in farming—the farmer’s liberation from sole dependence on the weary horse.” “Tractors are more economical than horses,” insisted an agricultural expert in a government report around the same time, “not only making farm work cheaper but easier.” The tech clearly impressed people, but it also scared them. One American observer, watching a tractor in England, said it “walked over the earth like some huge animal, puffing and snorting”. Tractors promised a revolution in American agriculture, an industry which in 1900 employed about a third of workers and produced about 15% of gdp.