Tractarianism

“ The origin of the poem entitled Tractoration, is as follows: In the year 1801 the author, (who is a native of Walpole, New Hampshire,) was in London, on business as an agent for a Company in Vermont. In that Metropolis he became acquainted with Mr Benjamin Douglas Perkins, proprietor of a patent right for making and using certain implements, called Metallic Tractors. These were said to cure diseases in all or nearly all cases of topical inflammation, by conducting from the diseased part the surplus of electric fluid which in such cases, causes or accompanies the morbid affection. ”

“ When fresh country is opened up, years must often pass before a proper high road can be made, yet there is great need of an organised system of transport. Whither ordinary traction-engines, or carts, even horses, could scarcely penetrate, the pedrail tractor, thanks to its big, flat feet, which give it, as someone has remarked, the appearance of "a cross between a traction-engine and an elephant," will be able to push its way at the forefront of advancing civilisation. ”

“ All at once the tractor was veering again, but far enough to the left to make me feel certain that I wouldn't be flattened to a pancake if I stayed where I was. But you can feel certain about something like that and go right on remembering what big tractors have done at various times in the past to men unfortunate enough to be caught off guard when there's a killer in the driver's seat. ”

“ I have therefore to repeat, that when the Perkinites complain of your rejecting the use of tractors, because their modus operandi cannot be entirely explained, although you adopt the use of drugs, the operation of which is equally or more inexplicable, your sacrifice in support of your ground is so great, that whoever attempts to drive you from such ground deserves to be laid low with the first weapon that comes to hand. ”

“ And so it was that I practically dropped work upon a tractor until the automobile was in production. With the automobile on the farms, the tractor became a necessity. For then the farmers had been introduced to power.
The farmer does not stand so much in need of new tools as of power to run the tools that he has. I have followed many a weary mile behind a plough and I know all the drudgery of it. What a waste it is for a human being to spend hours and days behind a slowly moving team of horses when in the same time a tractor could do six times as much work! ”

“ Those wicked tractors, I’m afraid,
Will overturn the doctor’s trade.
And then, alas! your worships may
Be forced to moil the live long day,
With hammer, pickaxe, spade, or shovel,
And nightly tenant some old hovel.
Or, destitute of food and lodging,
Through dark and dirty lanes be dodging,
Unless t’avoid such dismal lurkings,
You put a powerful paw on Perkins.
Behold what ought to raise your spleen high,
Perkins supported by Aldini! ”

“ But it is not so much in the solidity and weight of their carts and wagons that this peculiar economy of tractor forces, inherited and perpetuated here, may be seen most strikingly illustrated. It is in their application to the masses to be moved. Here before us was an example of the system. I asked the driver to let his three magnificent gray horses straighten their trace chains. I then paced the distance from the collar of the leader to the forward axle of the wagon, and found it a little over two rods! ”

“ Altogether these letters do not impress one with very high ideas of the intellect of the Tractarians. They all seem too deeply immersed in the practical details of their schemes. There is scarcely any discussion of principles, or even any distinct consciousness of the principles to be fought for. ”

“ An old lady of my acquaintance was actually advised by an ingenious son of Galen, an apothecary, resident a few miles north of London, to swallow tractors for an internal complaint. If our profession were to follow this laudable example, and force their patients to swallow them for pills, and then give the public a judicious detail of the terrible consequences, ending with the death of the patients, Perkinism would sink into that contempt in the estimation of the public which it justly deserves. ”

“ Tractor-plowing, I’m beginning to discover, isn’t the simple operation it sounds, for your land, in the first place, has to be staked off and marked with guidons, since you must know your measurements and have your headlands uniform and your furrows straight or there’ll be a woeful mix-up before you come to the end of your job. The great trouble is that a tractor can’t turn in its own length, as a team of horses can. ”

“ It could be attached to a simple horse frame for transport into the fields. There the farmer would load his produce, and when the body was full it would be returned to the road, picked up by a crane attached to the tractor, swung on to its carriage and wheels, and taken away to join other cars. By making the bodies of such dimensions as to fit three into an ordinary railway truck, they could be entrained easily. On reaching their destination another tractor would lift them out, fit them to wheels, and trundle them off to the consumer. ”

“ He began lamenting that so sensible a person as the patient should be caught in the use of so contemptible a piece of quackery as the tractors. After assuring the patient that he had thrown away his five guineas, for that it was well established by Dr Haygarth, that a brick-bat, tobacco-pipe, goose-quill, or even the bare finger, would perform the same cures, he was interrupted by his patient: ‘And are you sincere in your belief that you could have produced, by those means, the same effects upon me, which I have experienced from the tractors?’ ‘Do I believe it? ”

“ You will perceive, my dear Buddle, that the generality of the bench are either very fond of power, and flattered with Puseyite sycophancy; or anxious to keep pace with the titled aristocracy, and very fond of 'gentility.' Now there is no denying that the Tractarians are more polished men, and, as far as the arts and refinements go, more cultivated men than the labouring clergy generally, and therefore these two things keep them secure from any authoritative condemnation—their truckling to their spiritual superiors, and their standing in society. ”

“ Should it be objected that the tractors being also created substances ought also to be used, I could ingenuously retort, they were created in America, a country whose natives are Indians, an inferior order of beings to man, as some great philosophers before me have asserted, and who, it is evident, are the only order of creatures, on whom it was intended the tractors should be used. ”

“ By similar experiments, the intelligent citizens in America soon ascertained the true cause of the deception, and when these facts came to be developed, the Tractors lost all their influence on the human system, and have since been spoken of only in derision. ”

“ The Tractors must trust for their patronage to the enlightened and philanthropic out of the profession, or to medical men retired from practice, and who know of no other interest than the luxury of relieving the distressed. ”

“ Now then, gentlemen, I trust that if any man will con over, digest, comprehend, and admit this my ingenious and learned exposition of the fallacy of the arguments in favor of the tractors, so much harped upon by our adversaries, which are drawn from the circumstance of their having cured crows and infants, dogs and horses, he will with great facility be enabled to confound and overthrow them on all occasions, provided he enforce and proclaim it with the ardency its importance deserves. ”

“ The use of a differential has a disadvantage, however. If one wheel is in a mudhole and the other is on hard ground, the wheel in the mud meets with little resistance, and all of the power of the engine goes to it; it spins without moving the tractor, while the other wheel remains stationary. In such a case all of the power should be applied to the wheel that has traction in order to move the tractor, but this the differential fails to allow. ”

“ The sagacious doctor having published a scientific treatise against the tractors, demonstrating that “they act on the patient’s imagination,” Perkins, came out in reply, with all the fury of an Irish rebel, and declared that the doctor deserved to be trounced for not suffering his readers to know, that the tractors pretended to cure infants and brute animals, though numerous cases to that effect had then been published ”

“ There were some others, however, who, believing the public to labor under a delusion, thought it worth while to see whether the charm would be broken by an open trial of its virtue, as compared with that of some less hallowed formula. It must be remembered that a peculiar value was attached to the Metallic Tractors, as made and patented by Mr. Perkins. Dr. Haygarth, of Bath, performed various experiments upon patients afflicted with different complaints,—the patients supposing that the real five-guinea Tractors were employed. ”

“ On the corner, the doors of the auditorium were ajar, and a wide column of about fifty people—the word “people” is not the right one. These were heavy-wheeled automatons seemingly bound in iron and moved by an invisible mechanism. Not people, but a sort of human-like tractor. Over their heads, floating in the air—a white banner with a golden sun embroidered on it, and the rays of the sun: “We are the first! ”

“ Even the tractor used in slow hauls to town and back is a doubtful economic benefit. But the type of car such as is suggested could have its flange wheels exchanged for regular iron-tired wheels in five minutes—probably the smart farmer’s son could [Pg 211] do the job in three—while either the tractor or the team of horses or mules could draw it down into the fields where it would receive its produce. ”

“ A tractor, on the other hand, is intended not to carry, but to haul. It must run and do its work on rough hillsides, soft bottoms, or any other land where it is required to go. Instead of developing speed it develops pulling power, and must be able to develop its full power continuously.
Appearance and comfort count for a great deal in an automobile, and much attention is devoted to making it noiseless and simple to manage. These things do not apply in a tractor, which is a labor-saving and money-making machine, valuable only for the work that it can do. ”

“ TRACTOR PRINCIPLES
While tractors and automobiles are the same in general principles, there is a wide difference between them in design, construction, and handling, due to the differences in the work that they do and in the conditions under which they do it.
An automobile is required to move only itself and the load that it carries. While it can run over rough roads, these must be hard enough to support it; on soft ground it will sink in and be unable to get itself out. It can make great speed over smooth, level roads ”

“ Those remarkable haulers, the caterpillar tractors, cut many a passage through the sand, tugging heavy guns and ammunition, stores for the air and signal services, machinery for engineers and mobile workshops, and sometimes towing a weighty load of petrol to satisfy their voracious appetites for that fuel. The tractors did well. Sand was no trouble to them, and when mud marooned lorries during the advance in November the rattling, rumbling old tractor made fair weather of it. ”

“ Tractor Power.—Just as large tractors have supplanted horses and horse-drawn equipment on thousands of farms in the United States, the so-called garden tractor has become increasingly popular for the tilling of small acreages. The tractor requires “feed” only when it is working, is not subject to the ills that beset animals, and may be used for twenty-four hours a day if necessary. It makes an appeal to the mechanically minded members of the household and, if properly cared for, will give economical and lasting service. ”

“ There are tractors with one driving wheel, with two driving wheels, with three and with four, as well as three arrangements of the crawler principle; there are two-wheelers, three-wheelers and four-wheelers; tractors that are controlled by pedals and levers and tractors that are driven by reins.
Thus if a man who is competent to handle and care for one make is given another make to run, he may be entirely at a loss as to how it works and how it should be handled. ”

“ Not only the capitalist's tractors do better, cheaper and quicker work, but also they stand in the barn without an extra expense during the winter or when out of work, while the small farmer's horses are eating their heads off.
All tractors now in use are driven by high-priced fuel, such as gasoline, kerosene, etc. The coming of the Diesel tractor, therefore, will further lessen the running expenses of the capitalist farm and thereby contribute to outdistance the small farmer more and more in his struggle for existence. ”

“ Each part had to be as strong as it was possible to make it, the parts had to be few in number, and the whole had to admit of quantity production. We had some thought that perhaps the automobile engine might be used and we conducted a few experiments with it. But finally we became convinced that the kind of tractor we wanted and the automobile had practically nothing in common. It was the intention from the beginning that the tractor should be made as a separate undertaking from the automobile and in a distinct plant. No plant is big enough to make two articles. ”

“ The resulting vehicle need not be purely a tractor. In fact, we often find heavy lorries employed not only [Pg 21] to carry a substantial load, but to haul an additional lighter load in a trailer. As a rule, these trailers have iron-tyred wheels, but for service in which economy of engine power is more important than economy of money, rubber tyres are usually fitted, since they have the effect of reducing the power absorbed in hauling the trailer by about 25 per cent. ”