The Impact of the Three-Point Hitch on the Use of Horses in Agriculture

At the end of the 19^th century, mechanized farming rose in an industrially minded United States. Inventors were designing and building large steam engines, tractors, threshing machines, combines, and other implements used on farms to make farmers’ lives easier and more profitable. Although technological change was happening at a rapid rate, it would take another 50 years for the tractor to replace the horse on the average farm. This difference in time can be attributed to the versatility of the horse on farms, as well as the lack of utility of tractors. It would take the invention of the Ferguson System and the three-point hitch for the tractor to fill the gap between tractor and horse, which effectively removed farmers’ dependence on equine animals. The three-point hitch’s ability to increase the versatility of the tractor was a large, if not the largest, contributor to the replacement of horses by tractors on farms.