BUCKEYE and GAR WOOD: A History of the Buckeye Traction Ditcher Company and its Successors

摘要

In 1820s, American farmland was drained using the Scottish practice of digging ditches to follow the lay of the land, placing tile pipe in the ditch, and then backfilling the ditch. This technology faced a formidable obstacle in the Great Black Swamp of northwest Ohio. In this region from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Toledo and Sandusky lay some 1,500 square miles of wonderfully fertile soil that was far beyond the ability of manual labor to drain efficiently. James B. Hill was born in Fremont, Ohio, in the heart of the Great Black Swamp, on November 29, 1856. After relocating to nearby Bowling Green, he saw the need for a better way to drain land for irrigation, so he built the world's first successful powered trenching machine during his spare time in 1893 and patented it the next year.