Regarding the main question (i.e. why it took so long), it seems like this post talks almost exclusively about supply-side issues—i.e. good designs, reliable and robust manufacturing, shipping, etc. I’m surprised at the lack of consideration of demand-side issues—i.e. how much value the thresher brings to the farmer. Compared to the loom or the printing press, I’d expect the return-on-investment to be much lower for a thresher. A thresher would presumably only be used for a short period each year, when the crop comes in, and then it would be left alone the rest of the year, saving only a few weeks worth of labor. But a loom or press is used year-round by a specialist, saving much more labor per year, so presumably the ROI should be much higher. So, in order for threshers to catch on, the machinery needs to become cheaper (including transportation, financing, etc) and/or labor needs to become more expensive (e.g. via Baumol effect) relative to the critical point at which looms or presses catch on.
Good thoughts. You’re right that a threshing machine only applies to a portion of agricultural labor, for part of the year. (Then again, weaving is only a portion of the textile manufacturing process, and printing is only a portion of the book-making process.)
My first reaction is that there is lots of evidence of farmers being actively interested in threshing machines. See that block quote from McClelland about how many things George Washington tried. Farmer’s journals have lots of stories about them. They got exhibited at fairs. When the compilation of The Commercial, Agricultural & Manufacturer’s Magazine came out, the preface to the whole volume mentioned the threshing machine, and then it’s the very first article in the first issue. So, there is a lot of interest from farmers.
Another point is that a good threshing machine did the job better than a human, so it not only saved labor, it saved grain. So it was increasing the farmer’s harvest, in addition to decreasing costs. And this was something explicitly anticipated / hoped for, even as early as the 1636 “patent” I referenced.
There could be other motivations, too: one article I read mentioned that a threshing machine could help farmers get their harvest ready for market before the rivers froze for the winter.
And in fact, when a good threshing machine was invented in Scotland in 1786, it was adopted locally. It’s just that adoption was slow to spread—even to England, let alone to the US (or the rest of the world).
So, although I didn’t explicitly consider it, when I add it all up, I don’t think lack of interest from farmers was an issue.
Cost was an issue. Some models were just too expensive, especially those imported from overseas. But there were also cheap models—they just didn’t work reliably. It seems that an increase in reliability, rather than a decrease in cost, was the key to adoption.
Viewed another way, the reliability issue is itself a cost issue: sufficiently frequent maintenance could presumably substitute for more robust machinery, if the cost were worthwhile.
That raises a question for comparison: how much maintenance did looms or mills require? I would guess the more complicated 17th or 18th-century looms must have needed a ton, presumably from specialists on-site. Likewise, I assume mills usually had someone on-site who handled basic maintenance (among other roles). Possibly the rural location of farms made them less suited to on-site specialists for maintenance, or possibly the maintenance cost was just too high for the ROI.
(My inner economist is saying something like “the technology will be adopted iff benefit > (up-front cost)*(interest rate) + maintenance cost”. That’s a large oversimplification in a world with underdeveloped capital markets, but still seems like a useful framing. We just have to think a little more carefully about what e.g. “interest rate”—i.e. opportunity cost of capital investment per unit time—really corresponds to in this context.)
In practice, I don’t think it worked that way. If the machine broke, it was not at all easy to repair; you couldn’t just factor in a maintenance cost. And if the machine damaged or lost grain, it was worse than useless.
Good question about looms/mills, I don’t know. Before the 1800s or so, I think looms were mostly owned by weavers who worked from home. There was no “specialist on site”. But I don’t think they broke much, because there weren’t high forces involved. (In the late 1800s, when large power looms were set up in factories such as those at Lowell, Mass., I imagine they would have had an engineer on staff.) Re mills, I would guess that a broken mill would be repaired by the local millwright. But I doubt they were on-site.
Your model of costs vs. benefits is logical, but in practice there is uncertainty (about machine reliability / breakdowns) and people tend to avoid tail risk by seeking reliable machines. Also, previous standards of quality (that can be achieved by manual labor) tend to set a quality bar that machines have to meet before they are adopted. People don’t like reducing quality, even if the efficiency gain theoretically makes up for it. At least, that’s how it seemed to be in the early days of mechanization.
previous standards of quality (that can be achieved by manual labor) tend to set a quality bar that machines have to meet before they are adopted. People don’t like reducing quality, even if the efficiency gain theoretically makes up for it. At least, that’s how it seemed to be in the early days of mechanization.
That’s how it still is, at least in some industries. People hate going backwards in any metric (or software feature)
Another excellent Roots of Progress post!
Regarding the main question (i.e. why it took so long), it seems like this post talks almost exclusively about supply-side issues—i.e. good designs, reliable and robust manufacturing, shipping, etc. I’m surprised at the lack of consideration of demand-side issues—i.e. how much value the thresher brings to the farmer. Compared to the loom or the printing press, I’d expect the return-on-investment to be much lower for a thresher. A thresher would presumably only be used for a short period each year, when the crop comes in, and then it would be left alone the rest of the year, saving only a few weeks worth of labor. But a loom or press is used year-round by a specialist, saving much more labor per year, so presumably the ROI should be much higher. So, in order for threshers to catch on, the machinery needs to become cheaper (including transportation, financing, etc) and/or labor needs to become more expensive (e.g. via Baumol effect) relative to the critical point at which looms or presses catch on.
Good thoughts. You’re right that a threshing machine only applies to a portion of agricultural labor, for part of the year. (Then again, weaving is only a portion of the textile manufacturing process, and printing is only a portion of the book-making process.)
My first reaction is that there is lots of evidence of farmers being actively interested in threshing machines. See that block quote from McClelland about how many things George Washington tried. Farmer’s journals have lots of stories about them. They got exhibited at fairs. When the compilation of The Commercial, Agricultural & Manufacturer’s Magazine came out, the preface to the whole volume mentioned the threshing machine, and then it’s the very first article in the first issue. So, there is a lot of interest from farmers.
Another point is that a good threshing machine did the job better than a human, so it not only saved labor, it saved grain. So it was increasing the farmer’s harvest, in addition to decreasing costs. And this was something explicitly anticipated / hoped for, even as early as the 1636 “patent” I referenced.
There could be other motivations, too: one article I read mentioned that a threshing machine could help farmers get their harvest ready for market before the rivers froze for the winter.
And in fact, when a good threshing machine was invented in Scotland in 1786, it was adopted locally. It’s just that adoption was slow to spread—even to England, let alone to the US (or the rest of the world).
So, although I didn’t explicitly consider it, when I add it all up, I don’t think lack of interest from farmers was an issue.
Cost was an issue. Some models were just too expensive, especially those imported from overseas. But there were also cheap models—they just didn’t work reliably. It seems that an increase in reliability, rather than a decrease in cost, was the key to adoption.
Viewed another way, the reliability issue is itself a cost issue: sufficiently frequent maintenance could presumably substitute for more robust machinery, if the cost were worthwhile.
That raises a question for comparison: how much maintenance did looms or mills require? I would guess the more complicated 17th or 18th-century looms must have needed a ton, presumably from specialists on-site. Likewise, I assume mills usually had someone on-site who handled basic maintenance (among other roles). Possibly the rural location of farms made them less suited to on-site specialists for maintenance, or possibly the maintenance cost was just too high for the ROI.
(My inner economist is saying something like “the technology will be adopted iff benefit > (up-front cost)*(interest rate) + maintenance cost”. That’s a large oversimplification in a world with underdeveloped capital markets, but still seems like a useful framing. We just have to think a little more carefully about what e.g. “interest rate”—i.e. opportunity cost of capital investment per unit time—really corresponds to in this context.)
In practice, I don’t think it worked that way. If the machine broke, it was not at all easy to repair; you couldn’t just factor in a maintenance cost. And if the machine damaged or lost grain, it was worse than useless.
Good question about looms/mills, I don’t know. Before the 1800s or so, I think looms were mostly owned by weavers who worked from home. There was no “specialist on site”. But I don’t think they broke much, because there weren’t high forces involved. (In the late 1800s, when large power looms were set up in factories such as those at Lowell, Mass., I imagine they would have had an engineer on staff.) Re mills, I would guess that a broken mill would be repaired by the local millwright. But I doubt they were on-site.
Your model of costs vs. benefits is logical, but in practice there is uncertainty (about machine reliability / breakdowns) and people tend to avoid tail risk by seeking reliable machines. Also, previous standards of quality (that can be achieved by manual labor) tend to set a quality bar that machines have to meet before they are adopted. People don’t like reducing quality, even if the efficiency gain theoretically makes up for it. At least, that’s how it seemed to be in the early days of mechanization.
previous standards of quality (that can be achieved by manual labor) tend to set a quality bar that machines have to meet before they are adopted. People don’t like reducing quality, even if the efficiency gain theoretically makes up for it. At least, that’s how it seemed to be in the early days of mechanization.
That’s how it still is, at least in some industries. People hate going backwards in any metric (or software feature)