Tractors have their beginnings in Steam Traction Engines. The word tractor was thought to have originated around the first decade of the 20th century, in the US, to mean a haulage vehicle powered by an Internal Combustion Engine (or motor, to distinguish it from a steam engine); Logically, it’s a derivation of TRACtion and moTOR. Today the word tractor refers as much to the hauling part of an articulated road truck as to a farm machine. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries there are many recorded examples of agricultural tractors in production and use especially in North America. There will be little reference in this text to such perfectly adequate tractor companies as Claas - John Deere – International Harvester – David Brown – Case – Nuffield – Marshal - Fendt – Lanz – Massey Harris – Allis Chalmers. There is no doubt that all these companies have made some improvements to tractors. David Brown could have played a bigger role in this story but circumstances did not favour him. In my mind the Allis Chalmers model B is the prettiest tractor ever built; but there can be no doubt that the origins of the modern tractor lay elsewhere. At best they helped lay down some of the foundations of the modern tractor and then subsequently adopted it’s fundamental principals. That is not a meant as a criticism it’s simply a fact. Outside of the thrust of this storyline there was one additional and significant invention that resulted in the modern tractor being technically improved – 4 Wheel Drive. The story and origins of all-wheel-drive go back earlier than you may think and is a very worthwhile thread to investigate. Ironically Harry Ferguson, who would stubbornly still be making the TE20 today without any changes, devoted his post Massey-Ferguson-Harris era to pioneering the development of the Ferguson Formula ‘ff’ all-wheel-drive system for cars.The modern tractor can be seen as distinct from the original tractors in two crucial ways… the original tractor was simply a traction engine, with an internal combustion engine in place of a steam engine. It remained heavy, cumbersome and inefficient. The modern tractor would still haul but would be lightweight and able to be used in heavy soils. It would be nimble and versatile. It would undertake all manner of farm work and importantly alleviate the need for horses. The modern tractor has been defined as a traction unit with hydraulic controls that couple tractor and implement into one efficient unit and that’s as good a description as any.
Harry Ferguson is the key to unlocking the development of the modern tractor; he took out the original patents on a practical hydraulic system. He would have seen many earlier attempts to make a link between tractor and implement – some purely mechanical - some using hydraulic lifting – but he devised the system that forms the basis on which all hydraulically operated tractors use up to this day. His system not only carries and maintains implement control but also uses inherent forces within the system to improve traction. Without doubt Harry Ferguson significantly improved tractors but that is only half the story.
Henry Ford was a man obsessed with agriculture and the mass production of a tractor to help farmers in the same manner his famous Model ‘T’ car had revolutionized traveling. His early work was closely studied by Ferguson who worked with them during WW1. Ferguson clearly admired Ford and pragmatically saw him as a man with a similar vision for agriculture as his own and as a man with the industrial might to turn his invention into a universal winner. Henry Ford’s work on the modern tractor is certainly equal to that of Harry Ferguson’s and yet in many ways much broader. Tyres are a typical illustration of Ford’s contribution. Early tractors had steel or solid rubber tyres. Ford’s good friend Harvey Firestone (pictured with Ford & and Thomas Edison) developed the “Gum Dipped” pneumatic tractor tyre in 1932 (or should I say Tire) for him and the all-new Ford tractor. Such tyres have developed and enable today's huge and ever more powerful tractors to have a soft, gripping footprint.
The Ferguson Black tractor was simply a prototype; a fairly un-spectacular chassis with a unique and spectacular hydraulic system. If it had been good enough to stand alone would Ferguson have looked for a partner? His first partner David Brown did not work out: It seems reasonable to believe Ferguson knew the tractor chassis was not good enough to match his hydraulic system. Ferguson must have known he lacked the resources needed to develop the rest of the tractor. Anyone who has read about Ferguson knows about his independent character; he was not one to work with others comfortably. There is a good chance that he learned about the development of the new Ford tractor from the Sherman Bros. Indeed Ferguson was introduced to Henry Ford by the Sherman Bros his US associates, who were old Fordson agents and well known to Henry Ford.
