The first homesteaders arrived on the Carrizo Plain in 1885, where limited and unpredictable rainfall averaging only 8-10 inches per year made cultivation challenging and risky. Even so, dryland grain farming became a successful business in an area formerly focused on ranching. Plowlines visible along the foothills recall the early days, when equipment drawn by horses or mules worked the land. In the 1940s, more efficient tractors and modern harvester machines made large-scale farming possible. Mechanized agriculture was very noisy, with a diesel tractor pulling a harvester powered by a gasoline engine, and the captain on the harvester typically signaled the tractor driver by yanking a cord that rang a bell because shouting was futile. Harvest usually came in July, when temperatures reached 100-110 °F, and at the end of the day crews often jumped into cattle watering troughs for relief. Harvesters were cumbersome and difficult to operate, requiring crews of 3-10 men, and the earliest ones were pulled by teams of 16-20 horses or mules. Harvesters remained in use through the 1940s before being replaced by more efficient tractors and later threshers.