Tractor

“ But later on, I build an iron "basket" at the back bumper of the car to carry the front wheels of the tractor. Then I could drive the car and trail the tractor and the binder, and Ima could stay home. One patch of feed was 50 miles away in Kent County. Where the road was so sandy that the car couldn't pull the tractor and binder, I would crank the tractor motor and let the tractor push, with no driver on it. And we learned that low air pressure in the auto tires would allow it to go most anywhere in sand. We parked that Buick on top of nearly every sand hill in Carriker's big sand field. ”

“ In much of the work done by the tractor, the varying conditions of field and soil make a continual change in the load, and the tractor must be handled accordingly. The change from an uphill to a downhill haul, and from sand or light loam to gumbo, will require the gears to be shifted in order that the engine may neither labor nor race in keeping the outfit at its work. ”

“ 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 FARM TRACTOR
Farm tractors are becoming practical. Most theories have had a try out, the junk pile has received many failures and the fittest are about to survive. Now, if the manufacturers will standardize the rating and the important parts and improve their selling organizations the whole nation will profit. The successful tractors usually have vertical engines with four cylinders. They are likely to have straight spur transmission gears, and a straight spur or chain drive, all carefully protected from dust. ”

“ 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! ”

“ The uses of the all-round tractor in the field, shop and barn are indeed numberless, and any intelligent farm hand can learn in a few hours to operate them. This tractor can do the plowing right behind the binder when it is too hot for the horses to do it, and, with a headlight, may be operated during the night. The plowing done by the tractor is not only better, but also one dollar cheaper per acre than it can be accomplished with horses. ”

“ Before running a new tractor it should be given a careful examination to make sure that all nuts and bolts are tight, and not secured only by paint; that all grease cups are in position and filled; that all parts of the mechanism are properly lubricated; that oil holes are free from grit, and that nothing is cracked, broken or missing. ”

“ We find the design of ample strength, and the work of first-rate quality. We consider the driving-wheels rather light, and we understand that a new and stronger pattern is to be supplied in future.
The tractor is designed purely for working on the land, and the wheels, which are fitted with spuds, should be provided with some protection to enable them to travel on the road when moving from farm to farm. ”

“ In the Fordson tractor the differential is built into the axle, as it is in an automobile, and power is applied by a worm. The worm is driven by the change speed gear, and is a screw meshing with a gear on the differential, whose teeth are cut at the proper angle to make them fit the threads of the worm. A worm, which is shown in Figure 67, is always enclosed, and runs in oil. ”

“ Generally speaking, however, the most important farm tractor work is preparing the seed-bed thoroughly and quickly while the soil and weather conditions are the best. And the tractor’s ability to work all day and all night at such times is one of its best qualifications.
To plow one square mile, or 640 acres, with a walking plow turning a twelve-inch furrow, a man and team must walk 5,280 miles. The gang-plow has always been considered a horse killer, and, when farmers discovered that they could use oil power to save their horses, many were quick to make the change. ”

“ The usual type of garden tractor consists of two large wheels with lugs on them to give traction and is driven by a one- or two-cylinder motor. A plow, a cultivator, or mower may be attached to the drawbar, the operator walking behind and regulating the speed and guiding the outfit by handles provided for the purpose. ”

“ It is the tractor that will replace the horses and most of the farm hands and also squeezes out the small farmer. The onmarch of the farm tractor is so sudden and victorious that the United States census of 1910 did not bring out any statistical figures about it, while now the yearly output is more than 50,000 of these machines. They may be considered as having a combined working capacity of about twenty-five horses and ten men, which can be doubled if circumstances call for it. ”

“ With a gasoline or oil tractor equipped with engine plows one man can tend to both the plows and the engine, although some operators prefer to have two men, one relieving the other consequently plowing more acres per day and reducing the cost per acre. In some cases one man is placed on the plows and the other on the engine. By running the tractor twenty-four hours per day, with two shifts of men, a much better showing is made by the tractor when compared with horse plowing, for with the latter method it would be necessary to supply twice the number of horses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For more than an hour one day I was held up in a truck and watched a dozen experts, with block and tackle and "caterpillar tractor" move a twelve-inch monster from its hidden foundation up a slight incline toward the roadway. ”

“ A tractor is arranged to pull its load in two different ways, first by the draw bar, as when pulling plows, and secondly by a belt from the engine pulley as in driving a threshing machine or circular saw. In the first case it is necessary to drive the road wheels through the gear train, and in the second case it is necessary to disconnect the road wheels while driving 333the thresher or saw. As the engine cannot be started while under load it is also necessary to disconnect the road wheels to free the engine while turning it over to get the first explosion. ”

“ In selecting a satisfactory garden tractor attention should be directed to the simplicity and power of the motor, the type of bearings, the method of lubrication of all moving parts, the working speed and the economy of fuel. Bearings ought to be of standard, long-wearing type since these are subject to hard service. Two speeds are desirable, a slow one for heavy duty and a faster one for lighter work. ”

“ These machines have a device which permits the operator to steer the grader independently of the tractor. Thus the grader can be steered off to the side to cut out the ditches, while the tractor continues to travel on the firm part of the road. Earth moved with the blade grader is usually fairly free from large lumps and can readily be smoothed to a satisfactory surface for the use of traffic. The sods and weeds will be drawn into the road along with the earth just as they are when the elevating grader is employed. ”

“ So the farm machine makers had to change as many of the machines as they could, placing them beside the tractor or out in front where the driver can watch what is going on.
Tractors themselves come in many sizes and shapes. Some are built very high off the ground so they can pass over tall crops without hurting the plants. Some have four wheels that can be pushed close together for work in one field and pulled wide apart for work in another. Some have three wheels.
Mostly, farmers buy tractors the way people buy automobiles. ”

“ Tractor, Showing the Four Cylinder Engine in Place.
Gas power is not to be considered merely as a substitute for animal power for the engine not only performs the work of the horses but also performs work that no horse can do, and does it with far less expense. In the hottest weather when horses are dropping in the broiling sun, the tractor moves tirelessly 326through the fields. Every farmer knows the expense attached to keeping a horse in the idle winter period for it must be fed, watered, and cared for, work or no work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In some tractors the differential is so made that the parts may be locked together. This lock is used when one wheel is in a mud hole, and as by its use power is transmitted equally to both wheels, the tractor moves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The 5-ton artillery tractor, Model 1917, is a self-propelled road vehicle of the “Track laying” type; that is, the power is transmitted to the ground through a flexible endless chain which acts as a track and is composed of steel links and shoes cast integral and connected by hardened steelpins. The advantage of this type of tractor as compared with the usual type of wheel tractor or truck, is its ability, due to very low unit ground pressure, to negotiate very soft and uneven surfaces, impassable to the usual type of self-propelled vehicle except under the most extreme difficulties. ”

“ The working part of a tractor is the engine; it is this that furnishes the power that makes the machine go.
The engine gets its power from the burning of a mixture of fuel vapor and air. When this mixture burns, it becomes heated, and, as is usual with hot things, it tries to expand, or to occupy more room.
The mixture is placed in a cylinder, between the closed end and the piston; it is then heated by being burned, and, in struggling to expand, it forces the piston to slide down the cylinder. This movement of the piston makes the crank shaft revolve, which in turn drives the tractor. ”

“ The mechanism of the tractor is even more simple than that of the automobile and it is manufactured in exactly the same fashion. Until the present year, the production has been held back by the lack of a suitable factory. The first tractors had been made in the plant at Dearborn which is now used as an experimental station. That was not large enough to affect the economies of large-scale production and it could not well be enlarged because the design was to make the tractors at the River Rouge plant, and that, until this year, was not in full operation. ”

“ Never coast down hill; always run with one of the speeds engaged. By switching off the ignition the motion of the tractor will drive the engine, and this provides the best possible brake. On low gear, the engine will turn in the neighborhood of eighty revolutions to one turn of the driving wheels, and the work required to do this will check the tractor on the steepest of practicable grades.
A tractor is not built for as accurate and delicate steering as an automobile and should always be slowed in making a turn ”

“ 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. ”

“ The heavy-duty field tractor has four widely spaced iron wheels. Gift of Toy Manufacturers of the United States, New York, New York.
21. Model Tractor with Plow, Harrow, and Roller, 1919. USNM 64098; 1919. Spring-driven, toy tractor. The plow, harrow, and roller, as well as the tractor itself, represent a typical machine of the period. The product of no particular firm seems to have been copied. Gift of Toy Manufacturers of the United States, New York, New York. ”