Imagine toiling by hand in harsh weather conditions for days on end with no guarantee that your crop will actually produce enough for you to feed your family and make a profit. You are not even sure if your crops will survive to harvest. Life on the frontier in the mid-nineteenth was not easy for Wisconsin farmers. They were constantly looking for new and better ways to efficiently plant, cultivate, and harvest their fields. Enter George Esterly, a southern Wisconsin farmer and inventor who would help revolutionize farming practices across the nation.

Shortly after his arrival in the town of Whitewater, Wisconsin, in 1843, Esterly began manufacturing a variety of award-winning farming implements, including this broadcast seeder, a later model built in the 1870s at the height of the Esterly Manufacturing Company’s prosperity. Before such inventions, farmers had to scatter their seed by hand before covering it with a plow. The Esterly Broadcast Seeder combined the two processes by both scattering the seed and then covering it. This made the entire planting process faster and more efficient.