Wheatfields to Wildlands: Hunting Among the Ruins

The sagebrush steppe of the Pacific Northwest stretches wide and unbroken, a dry and often unforgiving landscape that shelters a surprising wealth of life—chukars, Hungarian partridge, valley quail, and other game birds thrive here in pockets of resilient habitat. But this wasn’t always wild country. In the early 20th century, large swaths of this land were cleared and cultivated, transformed into farmland through sheer willpower and mechanized ambition.

With fewer than twelve inches of annual rainfall, irrigation was—and still is—essential for any successful crop yield. Yet many early farmers failed to coax enough from the arid soil. Over time, as water ran short or dried up entirely, fields were abandoned. The land, patient and wild, took itself back. Sagebrush, bunchgrass, and the occasional rusted fencepost replaced the rows of alfalfa and grain.

Today, some of these forgotten fields have found new purpose under the care of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or state agencies. Though scattered and fragmented, especially in eastern Washington, these parcels are quiet treasure troves for upland bird hunters and amateur historians alike.

One of my favorite places to hunt quail lies within a 3,500-acre block of BLM land tucked into a flat, meandering river plain. Long ago, this was productive farmland. Today, the ghosts of that era remain: derelict irrigation pivots rust into the soil, and old equipment lies half-sunken in bunchgrass. But these edges—where cultivated land once met native habitat—are where the birds still gather. Nearly five miles of huntable ground winds through this valley, and every walk brings with it the possibility of both a flush and a discovery.

It was here, wandering with a shotgun slung over one shoulder and a satellite map in my pocket, that I began to notice a recurring artifact of the past: seeders—also known as seed drills—still standing where they were last used, decades ago. Some bore steel wheels, others had long-decayed wooden hoppers. The variations fascinated me, each piece a breadcrumb from a lost agricultural era. I began to wonder: how old were these machines, really?

A bit of research opened the door to a rich and unexpected history. The seed drill was invented by Jethro Tull—not the British rock band, but the 18th-century English agriculturist who revolutionized farming. In 1701, on his family’s farm in Berkshire, Tull introduced the idea of sowing seeds in precise rows and depths, rather than broadcasting them haphazardly across the soil. The innovation increased yields dramatically and set a standard that endured.

By the mid-1800s, American versions of the seed drill were commonplace. A seven-hoe drill was developed in 1841, and by the 1870s, machines were being manufactured that could reliably plant grain in uniform rows while covering it with soil. By 1890, there were nearly 50 different manufacturers of these machines across the U.S.

Irrigation didn’t arrive in the Columbia Basin until the early 1950s, when the Bureau of Reclamation completed the Grand Coulee Dam and its sprawling network of canals. Even so, farmers had worked this land without irrigation as early as the 1820s, with dryland wheat farming becoming more common by the 1880s.

One of the oldest drills I’ve found—discovered in a different section of BLM land—was a “Farmers Favorite,” built by Bickford & Huffman in 1902. The wood hopper was nearly dust, barely holding together. But another, better-preserved seeder I came across bore the initials “VB”—Van Brunt. That brand, first produced in 1861, was acquired by John Deere in 1911. Though the company retained the Van Brunt name into the 1960s, green paint didn’t appear on their models until after World War II.

The presence of these machines suggests that much of this land was farmed around the turn of the 20th century. Some seeders had steel hoppers and wheels, likely manufactured in the 1920s or ’30s. Others seemed even older. Each piece adds another layer to the story beneath my boots.

Now, every time I hunt these fields, I’m no longer just looking for birds. I’m walking through time. I can almost hear the steam-powered tractors chuffing across the flats, see the dusty backs of farmers bent to their labor, the same quail flitting from row to row in their wake. Like Jethro Tull—yes, the band this time—I find myself “Living in the Past.” What began as a simple hunt for birds has become something more layered: a connection to the people who shaped this land, the tools they left behind, and the wildness that quietly reclaimed it all.