A measure of my ever-increasing age is my recollection of the oft-repeated phrase "knee high by the fourth of July." Farmers in my youth were apt to predict the success of their crop by how tall the corn was at mid-season, the Fourth of July. Certainly, there was patriotism, picnics, and fireworks, but this day was also a measuring point.
Many advances in crop techniques antiquated this old saw, but they remain engrained in my consciousness. This is a mid-point of a season and of the year. Coincidentally, it is the start of our Florida fiscal year each July 1. It is an apt time for some reflection.
They say that each generation gets to stand on the shoulders of those who came before them. We look around our lives, and we see the truth of that. Certainly, my ancestors lacked access to such wonders as indoor, plumbing, internal combustion, electricity, and so much more. No, not my ancient ancestors. People I have spoken with remembered such times.
It is easy in retrospect to appreciate the struggles of those who delivered mail by horse, cart, or bobsled. It is easy to forget the toil and trouble of plowing a field with a single bottom plow, and a mule. Many of my ancestors put in a crop each season in that slow and tedious effort.
I reflect on the amazing technological advances that brought us to where we are and yet left so many sidelined in the process. The Industrial Revolution eliminated farm jobs and created manufacturing jobs building the very equipment that revolutionized the growing of crops.
My grandfather once tried to scratch a living from the soil on 20 acres of share-cropped land. Despite the seemingly modest magnitude of that endeavor, it was more than could be done. He lacked capital, and resources, and struggled. Others around him somehow found the funds to invest in such luxuries as a Ford tractor, capable of pulling a three-bottom plow.
Such devices were expensive and required fuel, but they could plow such a field much more rapidly. Those who obtained such equipment gained market advantage, and a little sharecropper had to find another path. Factories boomed, cities attracted labor, and there was a shift from the family farm. With mass production came mass consumption and the economy here became the world's engine.
Farms had to get larger to survive. The three-bottom plow gave way to ever-increasing larger equipment. I still remember when my grandparents leased their bottom land to the fellows down the road. Those gentlemen had invested hundreds of thousands in amazing equipment and could leverage it to plow, fertilize, weed, and harvest hundreds of acres. The sight of their parade of oversized John Deers rolling into a field was amazing at that time.
Today, I watch videos of such equipment being driven by remote control or even driverless. We are in the midst of perhaps a new revolution, or perhaps the next phase of that industrial revolution that started years past.
The equipment keeps getting bigger, and more sophisticated. Each advance in technology likely results in some population of the American farmers abandoning the occupation and leasing or selling land to someone with more, bigger, or more advanced technology. It is a march to the future.
Will your profession, occupation, or vocation somehow be immune from this? Will your children's? Have you thought about it?
The time frame is not all that lengthy. The first tractors, which began this transition, appeared as a real alternative in about 1900. The evolution above has taken place in about 125 years. That is a long time in some respects but seems quite short from the perspective of such revolutionary change.
What happened in the last 125 years? Since the 19th century, we have marveled at automobiles, telephones, fax machines, computers, electric typewriters, correcting typewriters, hard drives, flash drives, and cloud Drive. Am I the only one who is amazed?
We have lived through the time when Courthouse runners became obsolete. Paper largely became obsolete. The papermills, once a significant part of America’s industrial foundation, have diminished in the face of the PDF. Astoundingly, there are places today where pine trees rot in the field. The market simply shifted.
We have so many advantages and there has been so much progress. We nonetheless stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. It is easy to fault them and to complain of their failures of vision, analytics, and education. They were not perfect or infallible. But it was their progress, accomplishment, that delivered us here.
Technology and evolution have advanced and advantaged us. Today, we look to a future that is likely replete with robots, artificial intelligence, and a dozen more innovations or challenges we do no yet even imagine. Each will bring us great advantage and increased leverage for thought and labor. Each will likely have impact on prior advances.
Artificial Intelligence will replace Boolean Algebra, just as email destroyed the facsimile machine that was the wonder of the 1970s and beyond. Soon perhaps it will end keyboards, the mouse, and who knows what else. As we remember our past, perhaps we will pause periodically to remember the folks who plowed tiny plots using their best technology.
We stand on their shoulders. We should take advantage of these great advances. But there is merit in remembering their struggles, efforts, and success. Their efforts, success, and failure are the foundation of our present. In our path forward, we need to be conscious that we are likewise building a foundation for those who will follow us. Our efforts, engagement, and technology will likely one day look just as antiquated and quaint in their rearview mirrors.
In short, quit screaming at the kids to get off your lawn. They are tomorrow. But, you kids might want to listen to the old folks periodically, they have seen and experienced much that might bring value to your quest and adventures.
History is a valuable tool. I commend its study.
