How did we get from farms with hand drawn plows and horses, and Southern plantations full of recently freed slaves stuck on their own with no money, to modern life in the country? An important theme for people like my grandmother, who witnessed the onset of mechanized agriculture ... with increasing relevance today, as an agricultural system based on fossil fuels and synthetic agriculture is increasingly less viable, as the US experiences a rural-urban divide, and China seeks to relocate populations of small rural villages that are no longer economicaly viable.