Farming in the Macungie area spanned almost four hundred years, and even longer if the seasonal villages of native Indians are included. Agriculture was the area’s most important industry from the arrival of the first Europeans in the 1730s until its predominance began to decline during the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1700s, mixed farming produced food, fodder, income, flax for home-made textiles, swine for meat and fat, chickens for eggs and meat, and cattle for milk, meat, and brawn. By 1800, cultivated acreage had expanded, many farmers had grown prosperous, horses were replacing oxen for farm power, and homes, barns, and families had increased greatly in size. During the mid-1800s, iron implements became affordable, crops could be transported by train, and scientific advances improved understanding of soils, crop rotation, and fertilization. Industrialization brought machinery that allowed more production with fewer workers and also opened jobs in nearby towns, leading many people no longer needed on farms to move into places such as Allentown and Emmaus. In the last sixty or seventy years, livestock and small grains gave way to corn and soybeans, hedgerows were removed so large equipment could be used, and although some farming persists, most of the land once prized by earlier generations has been built on and cannot be reclaimed for nature’s purposes.