History of the United States I / Unit 9 USH1 1228 short lesson, about 20 seconds
McCormick and Deere
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The idea
Cyrus McCormick tested a mechanical reaper in eighteen thirty-one which by the eighteen fifties enabled farmers to vastly increase their output.
In practice
John Deere improving the plough so that it could cut through prairie sod.
Where people slip
Both inventions made the western prairies farmable at scale, which is what the transportation revolution then carried east.
Your place on the trail
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