American farms in the colonial period had much in common with European farms of the Middle Ages. By nature, farmers were conservative, and little had changed on American farms since early colonial times. Farms in that period were very labor intensive: fields were cultivated, plowed, and harrowed with horse-drawn equipment, and crops were seeded, weeded, harvested, threshed, and winnowed largely by hand.
Then, during the late eighteenth century, the methods of growing, raising, and processing food began to change. Some American farmers began adopting enhanced European agricultural practices, such as the use of organic fertilizers, crop rotation, and livestock breeding systems. Americans also began experimenting with other ways to improve agriculture. For instance, Ben Franklin, America’s foremost colonial scientist, advocated the use of plaster composed of lime or gypsum to fertilize the soil. He sowed the plaster on a field. The resulting boost in growth where it was plastered encouraged farmers to be more open to further agricultural innovation. Another colonial American, Thomas Jefferson, experimented with moldboards (curved metal plow blades that lift and turn over soil), while others pioneered the manufacture of cast-iron plows.
