All Things Come to Rest

It was 1892 in Northeast Iowa and John Froelich was building, “the first successful gasoline-powered engine that could be driven backwards and forwards. The word ‘tractor’ wasn’t used in those days, but that’s what it was.” Source: www.froelichtractor.com

While Froelich was tinkering away on the forerunner of the tractor, other Americans were reading Sherlock Holmes and Kipling. A depression was beginning to unfold. It was also approaching the time of Jim Crowe (Plessy vs. Ferguson) and the Spanish-American War. 

The Gilded Age was indeed a prime time to begin envisioning the invention of the tractors that would rise, drive over, and drive into deeply-rooted grass reaching for water in the aquifer that was established thousands of years before. 

The tractor, to this day, tries to rival the depth and breadth of the history and resilience of earth. Oh my dear tractor-loving friends, Mother Nature will eventually win against your iron, steel, and now mostly plastic one day too. 

Before the tractor was a tractor, no doubt some of those toiling on the land with plow and ox were getting tired trying to tame the nation’s grasslands into cornfields to feed dirt-raised hogs, chickens, mules, and such. The corn cobs were burned to heat the sod houses that sprung up over where every inch of the buffalo were used by humans living in-tandem with the land, beast, and all natural elements outside and within themselves. 

But why be so exhaustive with this writing when I can drive home the point in the tractor’s seat more succinctly? Yes the tractor, with its humble beginnings in the imagination of a human who created that initial machine that could push forward and backward with mechanical horsepower, not mighty steed power anymore. 

I wish I could sit and ask Froelich over coffee, “Are we being pushed forwards or backwards with all these tractors?” I am certain he would scratch his head looking around at what happened and not marvel at all the results. 

Perhaps a momentary rest from big green and red machines to just think and touch the soil could help us achieve more balance. Perhaps bending over to scoop up a cup of water into our hands from the last waterways would cause us pause. 

I suppose one would think after reading this that I am against tractors. No, that’s not it. I am for rest and thought about what we really need them for as we consider what the land was inherently designed to be for us. 

Stopping the tractors to listen to the engine inside ourselves, (our hearts), would help I think. Like tractors come to rest, we will also come to rest and the earth will take us home to her and release us to forever. 

Calling all tired farmers to shut the tractors off for a time, to listen and learn from the land while they still can. Not unlike the worn out farmer, the land gets tired too. 

All things come to rest. 

Copyright© 2026 All Rights Reserved, Kerry Hoffschneider