Name/Title
L060R006Description
## L060R006 — Updated Collection Description
Title: Mid-Century American Agriculture – Land Drainage, Crop Spraying, Mechanized Farming & Onion Harvest
Estimated Date: 1940s–1950s (unconfirmed) Location: United States, unidentified agricultural region
### Collection Description
Vintage color film documenting mid-20th-century American agricultural operations, including land drainage, mechanized cultivation, crop spraying, field preparation, rural aviation, and onion harvesting.
Opening footage features a large Earl Kelly dragline excavator digging drainage channels through flat farmland. Additional scenes show tracked tractors and bulldozers moving soil, men operating cultivators, and agricultural equipment preparing fields for planting. Wide views reveal extensive rows of cultivated farmland separated by drainage ditches and waterways.
Several sequences document mechanized crop spraying, including a tracked tractor fitted with large chemical tanks and a wide spray boom applying liquid treatment across agricultural fields. Men operate and supervise the equipment as visible spray disperses over crops and freshly cultivated soil. Other footage shows tractors pulling multi-row agricultural implements, workers adjusting machinery, and a man operating a motorized walk-behind cultivator.
Men and women are filmed working in fields, tilling soil, crouching among crops, tending plants, and performing manual agricultural labor. A distinctive aviation sequence shows men preparing a small airplane for takeoff from an open field, followed by the aircraft taking off and flying over farmland.
Later scenes document onion harvesting, with men and women gathering onions by hand and placing them into wooden crates. A woman works alongside a dog, while additional workers load harvested produce onto agricultural equipment. Footage also includes a train, agricultural landscapes, farm machinery, and groups of workers participating in the harvest.
The reel provides a detailed historical record of American agricultural mechanization, land management, crop treatment, manual harvesting, and rural food production.
### Additional Scenes Identified
| New still | Description |
| --------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| 16 | Two men operating tractor-mounted crop spraying equipment, releasing a visible cloud of spray across a green field |
| 17 | Long agricultural drainage ditch separating freshly cultivated fields and parallel crop rows |
| 18 | Man operating a tracked agricultural tractor fitted with a liquid tank and field-treatment equipment |
| 19 | Close-up of rear-mounted agricultural implement and liquid application equipment working freshly tilled soil |
| 20 | Wide landscape of evenly spaced crop rows extending across a large cultivated field |
| 23 | Tracked agricultural tractor carrying two large cylindrical tanks and applying liquid spray to crops |
### Additional Catalog Keywords
Crop spraying, agricultural sprayer, tractor-mounted sprayer, spray boom, chemical application, agricultural chemicals, crop treatment, pesticide application, herbicide application, liquid fertilizer application, tracked tractor, crawler tractor, agricultural drainage, drainage canal, drainage ditch, farmland drainage, soil preparation, row crops, cultivated fields, agricultural technology, mechanized agriculture, farm equipment operator, historic agricultural machinery, mid-century farming.
Archival note: These new images significantly strengthen the reel's value as historical agricultural footage. The spraying equipment is especially noteworthy, although the substance being applied cannot be identified visually. For catalog accuracy, I would use crop spraying or agricultural chemical application rather than definitively identifying it as pesticide, herbicide, or fertilizer.
The new material also makes agricultural land drainage and mechanized crop treatment two of the reel's strongest searchable subjects, alongside onion harvesting.Motion Picture Details
Film Gauge/Format
16mmRuntime
0:20:47
