Back in the 1800s there weren't a lot of straw cutting machines. Most of the time on small farms you would find a cutting box. The cutting box was 3 feet by 6 inches. The people that worked with the machines had to move the straw down the machine or it wouldn't move an inch. They had to slice the straw into how big it was going to be. Later in the 1800s very sharp blades were attached to the spokes of the wheel and they would have to crank the wheel to get it to turn. They would use the leftover straw to assemble brooms. Brooms made in Hadley were sold all over the Pioneer Valley and beyond. They were sold in Pittsfield, Albany, and Connecticut. Broom making was the first thriving manufacturing business in Hadley. Broom corn became the most important crop in Hadley. A man named C.D. Dickinson in 1840 made a mill for brooms to be made in. In 1850 there were 41 broom-making shops in Hadley, and all of the shops together made 769,700 brooms. The brooms were valued at $118,478 in total. When a man named Levi Dickinson died in 1843, the broom-making industry faded away in Hadley.