Emily+Cook





= = Settlers traveling west were having difficulties plowing up the land. They were using heavy cast iron plows that were designed for sandy ground. In 1838 John Deere, a blacksmith by trade, decided land would be easier to work if the plow was sharper. This would help cut up the thick prairie grass and slice through the thick clay. Deere used an old saw blade and bent it over a log to contour the blade to fit his needs. He then patented his invention with U.S. Patent number 46,454. The plow became immensely popular and soon Deere was selling thousands of plows a year. His invention was instrumental in providing food for a growing population. With the use of the steel plow, farmers could plow more land in less time producing a higher crop yield.

King Korn
In the video “King Corn” we follow two men that want to find out how so much corn ends up in our bodies. They first head to a university where their hair is tested to find out what the majority of their carbon make up is. It turns out to be corn. So they decide to start at the beginning and grow their own acre of corn and follow it through the system. What the audience ends up taking away from the movie is just about everything that we eat has corn being used as a filler or sweetener hidden somewhere in our food. What I learned from the movie is how much emphasis the government puts on growing corn, so much in fact that they are literally paying farmers to plant it. Without the government subsidies the farmers would actually lose money. I also found it interesting how the farmers felt about the crop they were growing. They know fully that what they are growing is nothing worthy of actually eating. There seemed to b e no pride in the farmers interviewed about the work they were doing. The name of the farming game was to get bigger and get checks from the government. I had no idea before the movie that the United States grows so much corn and the process that it goes through. The movie was interesting to me; I enjoyed watching the two kids from Boston try and grow and acre of corn without tearing something up. It was also interesting to learn that corn is so influential, because before I never really thought about it.