Until the 1950s mechanization played only a minor role. The emphasis on biological technology was supported by conscious government choice: in the late nineteenth century Japan imported machinery from the United States, but did not find it useful. It then hired biologists from Germany to assist in developing its biological research program, which was successful. The United States, however, emphasized mechanical technology even before 1880. Although publicly funded biological research was initiated in the 1870s, it did not produce big increases in yields until about 1930, well after the major land frontiers had been closed and mechanization was far advanced.
It is thus no accident that rental markets for threshing machines were well established in the nineteenth century in the United States and are now common all over Asia (Gardezi and others 1979; Walker and Kshirsagar 1981). The contract-hire system for combines in the United States illustrates the problem of synchronized timing. The contractors achieve higher rates of machinery utilization by migrating to follow the harvest from the TexasOklahoma area to the northern states, where harvesting takes place months later.

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Until the 1950s mechanization played only a minor role. The emphasis on biological technology was supported by conscious government choice: in the late nineteenth century Japan imported machinery from the United States, but did not find it useful. It then hired biologists from Germany to assist in developing its biological research program, which was successful. The United States, however, emphasized mechanical technology even before 1880. Although publicly funded biological research was initiated in the 1870s, it did not produce big increases in yields until about 1930, well after the major land frontiers had been closed and mechanization was far advanced.
It is thus no accident that rental markets for threshing machines were well established in the nineteenth century in the United States and are now common all over Asia (Gardezi and others 1979; Walker and Kshirsagar 1981). The contract-hire system for combines in the United States illustrates the problem of synchronized timing. The contractors achieve higher rates of machinery utilization by migrating to follow the harvest from the TexasOklahoma area to the northern states, where harvesting takes place months later.

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