Cloning is not a new phenomena

I expect you will have an interest in old tractors otherwise the contents of this blog will not hold your attention for long. The story of the origins of the modern tractor is a momentous and truly fascinating one.

My adopted definition of a modern tractor is one that can work with implements as one unit. The Ferguson System (not the Ferguson Tractor) was without doubt the difference between early tractors and modern tractors. This blog attempts to tie together the origins of the modern tractor in such a way as to explain them simply and in a balanced format. As I state in the forward, this blog contains no new revelation: I hope to inspire you to pick up one or more of the many threads to this story and study them in more detail. The photo collage above shows my hero's; four of them made significant contributions and the fifth is just simply a hero.

Most of us will have visited County Fairs, Shows or FĂȘtes and will have seen displays of old steam engines, cars, motorcycles or tractors. These never fail to fascinate us irrespective of our connection with them. The men and women behind these bygones may well belong to one of the many specialist clubs, societies or web forums that support their particular pride and joys. The world of restoration and preservation is my world and whilst I prefer to see old tractors working at a ploughing demonstration, I also admire chaps who faithfully restore old tractors and other bygone farm machinery to concourse condition; never mind they will never see a spec of dust, let alone a muddy field. I must also say that all rivalry between owners of certain makes or models of vintage tractors is usually forgotten when engineers get together with their pride and joy’s.

Ask a Briton to tell you who invented the modern tractor and I suspect that he will conjure up the image of a Little Grey Fergie and answer Harry Ferguson. That’s OK because without doubt the first modern tractor was the Ferguson prototype Black Tractor. However, like with the invention of Television and the Jet Engine we're a bit biased here on our island and we miss the bigger picture. Important as he is - Ferguson never designed a practical working tractor, his Black Tractor was just a prototype. The Ferguson-Brown tractor was weak and one of the main reasons for Ferguson's split with Brown was the recognition of this weakness and the different paths Ferguson and Brown wanted to take.

During the 1960’s I was an apprentice agricultural engineer to a supplier of Massey-Ferguson equipment. The superiority of M-F products over Ford(son) products was instilled in me and for most of my life I believed that Harry Ferguson took crude Ford tractors and turned them into modern tractors - only for Ford to cheat him and force him to bravely fight for compensation.

My intention is not to diminish Ferguson’s importance in any way, but to introduce other important contributions to the modern tractor and to look at the sequence of developments that culminated in the first truly successful modern tractor. First we look at the independent Mr. Ferguson and the independent Mr. Ford. Then we explore Ferguson & Ford working in co-operation and finally at the Ferguson & Ford battleground.

The modern tractor is a classic tale of hands across the Atlantic and with this in mind we need to know some of the subtleties of Ford and Fordson tractors because there was an Atlantic divide during their development...
Originally the board of the US Ford Motor Company refused to get behind founder Henry Ford’s first tractors and he was forced to set-up the independent Henry Ford and Son Company (more detailed a little later on); first in the US, then in Co. Cork, Ireland. In the UK the British run Ford Company did produce and sell Fordson tractors and they continued to do so long after Fordson production stopped in the US and the Cork plant was closed. In the 1950’s and early 60’s some English made Fordson tractors were exported to the US Ford Motor Company for distribution in the United States alongside the Ford tractor range, the Dexta being a fine example. It was not until the mid-1960’s and the advent of the 2000, 3000, 4000 & 5000 series that Ford, by now a unified global corporation, consolidated the Ford brand for all tractors.

With a depression in agriculture draining funds, Fordson production in the US ceased in 1928. By the mid 1930’s however, the company was planning to take up tractor manufacture again, but under the Ford name: It was during this re-development that a joint manufacturing deal was struck between Harry Ferguson and Henry Ford. The deal meant that the proposed new Ford tractor would incorporate the Ferguson Hydraulic System. This tractor was the Ford 9N which became 2N and subsequently the infamous 8N before finishing it’s life span as the NAN or Jubilee. The British Ford Company never sold these tractors orderivatives.

Sadly today Mr. Ferguson’s name and Mr. Ford’s name have all but disappeared from modern tractors.