How Steel Changed Agriculture Drastically: The First Steel Plow Hannah Adams

JOHN DEERE Deere was born on February 7, He began his career as a blacksmith. He opened a blacksmith shop in Vermont. Deere soon went into bankruptcy, due to the fact that there were too many blacksmiths in his area. After his bankruptcy he sold his shop to his father-in-law and moved to Grand Detour, Illinois.

The need for the plow. There was observation over time that proved that crops were more productive where the soil was loosened. Farmers felt the soil needed to be tilled before planting the seeds for an increased productivity of the crop. Many farmers began seeing a need for a plow with a metal other than the cast iron being used. Deere saw this need and the idea of the first steel plow began with a broken steel sawmill blade.

Invention of the First Steel Plow The first steel plow was invented in the year of It was invented in Grand Detour, Illinois by John Deere. The highly polished steel moldboard made the cleaning process of the plow extremely efficient and easy.

Process of Making the Plow The first step after the addition of the moldboard was the addition of the pin to regulate the depth of plowing. The last process in the creation of the plow was a wedge to move the earth and redeposit it in broken pieces. The main process of creating the plow was the lengthy process of making steel.

Andrew Carnegie Andrew began his adventure in the steel industry by co- funding his first steel company, near Pittsburg in the early 1870s. Carnegie was well known for his company called Carnegie Steel Company.

Steel Steel was made to be an alternative to iron. Steel’s carbon content, ranging from.2 to 1.5 percent, made the material stronger and harder than the well-known wrought iron. The carbon content in steel was not high enough to make it as brittle as the cast iron. Even though steel was a high quality metal, it was very difficult and expensive to make.

Beginning Process of Making Steel The beginning process consisted of many different stages. The process began with bars of wrought iron being packed in powdered charcoal, layer upon layer, in tightly covered stone boxes and heated. The first process would last several days. The metal would then be broken into pieces and would then be rejoined to the charcoal powder. Then it would be reheated and then the outcome would be called a blister steal.

Process Continued The blister steel then will continue the process of becoming that final product. The process would continue by reheating the steel. Then the steel would be placed under a forge hammer to give the steel a more consistent texture.

Process Continued Then the steel would continue the process to produce an outcome of a higher quality steel. The steel would then be melted down into clay crucibles and further refined by adding a special flux that removed fine particles of slag that the cementation process did not remove. The final product was called a crucible steel.

The Bessemer Process This efficient process of making steel was invented by a man with the name of Sir Henry Bessemer. He reasoned that carbon in molten pig iron unites readily with oxygen. Bessemer had the knowledge that a strong blast of air through molten pig iron would convert the pig iron into steel by reducing the amount of carbon content.

The Bessemer Process Continued Bessemer then created what he called a converter in The converter was a large pear-shaped receptacle with holes at the bottom to allow the injection of the compressed air. After this, he filled the converter with the molten pig iron and then blew the compressed air through the metal. This process speed up the drawn out process of making steel.

Converter

The importance of the steel in the history of the first plow. Without the efficient process of making steel there would have been no steel plow. The plow was needed to increase the production of the resources need by the population. The population was growing dramatically and without the technology of the agriculture industry growing with it there would be a great loss in production.

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