New Farm Tractor
New Farm Tractor - meaning Summary
Modern Machine Replaces Mules
Sandburg’s "New Farm Tractor" contrasts old rural life with mechanical modernity. The poem portrays a tractor replacing mules and muleteers, turning animal labor and traditional songs into oil, grease, and patent records. The speaker registers both practical marvel and bittersweet farewell, carving mule imagery onto the wheel as an act of memory. The tractor is praised for reliability and convenience while also marking the end of an older agricultural world.
Read Complete AnalysesTHE REAR axles hold the kick of twenty Missouri jackasses. It is in the records of the patent office and the ads there is twenty horse power pull here. The farm boy says hello to you instead of twenty mules— he sings to you instead of ten span of mules. A bucket of oil and a can of grease is your hay and oats. Rain proof and fool proof they stable you anywhere in the fields with the stars for a roof. I carve a team of long ear mules on the steering wheel— it's good-by now to leather reins and the songs of the old mule skinners.
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