K.6

John Deere

MMD

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Read the passage about John Deere.

"Draft horses pulling a plow" by Dee Browning, Alamy Stock Photo

A farmer plowing a field

John Deere was born in Vermont in 1804. Back then, people did not have the machines that we have now, like computers and phones. But they did have tools made of a strong metal called iron. When John was a young man, he decided to become a blacksmith. A blacksmith uses metal to make tools like hammers, nails, and shovels.

At that time, the United States was much smaller than it is today. Most Americans lived in the eastern part of the country. But it was difficult for John Deere to find work in the East, because so many blacksmiths already lived there. So, like many other people at the time, Deere moved farther west, to Illinois.

Many people moving west were farmers. But farming in the West was harder than farming in the East. The ground in Illinois had a lot of clay in it, which made the dirt sticky. This clay made it difficult to break up dirt in the ground to plant seeds and grow food.

Many farmers use a tool called a plow to help them break up the ground and grow plants. A plow has metal blades that push through the dirt. But since the western dirt and clay would stick to the plows' iron blades, farmers needed to clean the blades every few steps. Sometimes, sticky dirt would even break the plows. So, when Deere moved to Illinois, he spent a lot of time fixing broken plows.

When John Deere was born, how was life different from today?

People did not have many of the machines that we have today.

People did not know how to make tools, like shovels, out of metal.

Most farmers in the United States were moving east to Vermont.

Hunting wild animals, like deer, was the main way people got food.

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