Agricultural Revolution?

So this occured to me today driving back from getting my driver's license renewed. Coming back from Flemington into Hopewell, there's a lot of farm land and a lot of trees. For whatever reason this brought to mind an article in BusinessWeek, whose focus was actually on outsourcing and globalization, but there was a bit in there about a guy who bought an Indian tractor or something after Katrina pretty much destroyed his property. It's this big red behemoth with some ridiculous amount of horsepower for a tractor. The though that occured was whether or not technology designed to help the farmer actually helps him. Let me indulge myself and explore this. Back in the day, before the internal combustion engine, I would guess that the amount of land you can plow under is limited by the amount of land you can clear. Your ability to clear is determined by how much brute force you have at your disposal, whether its oxen or a team of horses or whatever. But you get a giant tractor and all of a sudden you can clear more land. Then you can plant a bigger crop. Then you bring more to market and you make more money. Sounds great. But hold on a minute. If everybody gets a tractor and they clear land, then there's more food on the market. People assume that this will remain the case and they have more kids. A greater population requires more housing, so maybe somebody buys some of your farmland and builds a housing development on it. Sound familiar New Jersey? So you have that lump sum, but less land and you figure you can live off that for a while and supplement your income with farming. What happens when you have a bad year? What about drought and infestation? I suppose after a certain point you sell the rest of the land and move to Florida, but I guess I just long for a simpler time. Or fewer neighbors. Take your pick.