SALEM, Ohio – There’s no doubt that farming is the backbone of all civilizations in the world. But thanks to modern technology, it has become possible to make things easier than ever before.

There might be some debate on which gadgets had the biggest impact on farming throughout the years, but few would challenge the Top 10 list provided by Sam Moore, former writer with Farm Collector magazine and author of the book “Harvesting Heritage: 150 Years on the American Farm.” Moore, who had a column entitled “Let’s Talk Rusty Iron,” grew up on a farm in western Pennsylvania. He worked and resided in Salem before retiring two years ago to Salt Lake City, Utah.

“Old farm equipment has always been my focus and I haven’t been keeping up with today’s farming methods,” Moore said. “Ever since my Top 10 list was published there have been significant changes in agriculture. Things such as GPS, autonomous machines and the widespread use of drones have made an impact on agriculture so they could easily be added to that list. It is innovative technology that has changed the face of farming throughout the world. I sometimes wonder what my grandfather or even my dad would think if they were to suddenly be plopped down on a modern farm.

“My Top 10 includes the most significant agricultural inventions during the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Some farm machinery advances can be attributed to an individual, but most were the product of many curious and ingenious people who made incremental improvements to the work of their predecessors.”

At No. 1 on Moore’s list is the cotton gin. “In colonial times, cotton cloth was more expensive than linen or wool because of the extreme difficulty of separating seed from the clinging fibers,” Moore said. “One man could pick the seeds from only about one pound of cotton fiber per day.”

The cotton gin separated seeds, hulls and unwanted materials from cotton after it was picked. Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin on March 14, 1794. Whitney’s invention allowed 1,000 pounds of cotton to be cleaned in the time it took one man to do five pounds by hand. As a result, the price of cotton cloth plummeted, the cotton plantation culture of the South was established and the use of slave labor in growing cotton became entrenched.

The reaper/binder is no. 2 on Moore’s list. “Small grains had been harvested by hand for centuries, cut with sickles or scythes, hand-raked and tied into sheaves,” he said. “Grain harvesting machines first appeared in Great Britain around 1800, and in the U.S. a decade or two later, but most failed. Obed Hussey and Cyrus McCormick developed successful reapers during the 1830s. By 1857, the Marsh brothers equipped a reaper with moving canvasses that carried the grain to a platform where it was tied into bundles by a worker riding on the machine.”

At No. 3 is the thresher. “When grain was being cut by hand, the method for separating the kernels from the straw was equally slow and labor intensive,” Moore said. “Grain was hauled to a barn where it was spread on a threshing floor and either beaten with hand flails or trampled by animals. That knocked the kernels free of the straw, which was then raked away. The remaining mixture was winnowed by tossing it into the air where the wind was relied upon to blow the chaff and lighter debris away from the heavier grain, which fell back onto the threshing floor.”

Brothers Hiram and John Pitts are credited with invention of the first successful American separator in 1830, as well as with adapting a horse tread power to run the thing. “Later improvements resulted in machines that extracted virtually all the grain from the straw and thoroughly cleaned it,” Moore said.

The steam engine is no. 4 on his list. “Until the end of the 18th century, American farmers relied primarily upon their own strong backs and arms and those of family members,” Moore said. “Stationary steam engines were used early on to run cotton gins and mills. Portable steam power made its first appearance in 1849 and during the 1870s practical drive systems and self-propelled steam traction engines became common as power for the many threshing rigs around the country.”

No. 5 on Moore’s list is the combined harvester-thresher (1886) and No. 6 is the auto truck, or auto wagon, which was introduced in 1907 by International Harvester. Soon, four-wheeled wagons were a thing of the past.

No. 7 is the gasoline tractor.

“Steam tractors required a lot of water and fuel, as well as a trained engineer at the wheel,” Moore said. “The internal combustion engine, developed in the 1890s, offered an alternative to steam. Early tractors, though, were big, heavy and awkward and none too reliable. By 1920 the better ones had survived and were popular on American farms.”

At No. 8, Moore cites the general purpose tractor. In 1924, Moore said, IH introduced the Farmall, the first real general purpose tractor that could pull heavy tillage and harvesting machines as well as plant and cultivate row crops.

Rubber tires are no. 9 on Moore’s list. “Steel-lugged wheels limited speed, vibrated, shook belts loose and quickly dug themselves into soft ground if they spun, not to mention what they did to the diver’s innards,” Moore said. “Solid rubber tires began to be fitted to industrial tractors around 1920.”

At No. 10 is the hydraulic implement lift with draft control.

“The first tractor mechanical lift appeared in 1927, and a hydraulic lift in 1934. These lifts raised and then dropped the implement without the operator having to wrestle a hand lever but depth control still required frequent manipulation of a lever or crank,” Moore said. “By 1933, Irishman Harry Ferguson developed a perfect way of attaching an implement to a tractor by three arms. Today, virtually every tractor sold in the world features a three-point hitch based on Ferguson’s system.”

Marvin Tracey, former member of the Ohio Tool Collectors Association and collector of old farm implements of days gone by, agreed with Moore for the most part, but said other inventions or planting methods may have had a great impact on agricultural methods of today.

“Crop rotation is first that comes to my mind,” Tracey said. “Growing the same crop repeatedly on the same land eventually depleted the soil of different nutrients. Old-timers from Oklahoma recall the Dust Bowl and learned from the mistake of planting the same crop year after year.

“I would add two more to that Top 10 list, the first being the grain elevator. In 1842, the first grain elevator was built by Joseph Dart. It was a vital and integral part to farming. Second on my list would be the milking machine. In 1879, Anna Baldwin patented a milking machine that replaced hand milking. Her milking machine was a vacuum device that connected to a hand pump.”