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Cultivator's origins rooted in spike-tooth harrow firm

Arnold Johnson of Estelline, S.D., inquired in the May issue of Farm Collector about New Century corn cultivators, inspiring this column. New Century traces its roots to a company called Farm Tools, Inc., formed in 1930, in the wake of the stock market crash.

Many farm implement manufacturers failed during the severe economic downturn that followed World War I and that by 1921 had become a full-fledged depression. Those who survived that debacle barely had recovered by October 1929, when the stock market crashed. To weather the harsh business conditions, many companies merged. Among them were four short-line farm equipment manufacturers: Vulcan Plow Co., Hayes Pump & Planter Co., Peoria Drill & Seeder Co. and Roderick Lean Co. The four firms formed Farm Tools, Inc., with offices in Mansfield, Ohio.

The moving force behind Farm Tools was the Vulcan Plow Co., of Evansville, Ind. Established in 1874, Vulcan made walking, riding and tractor plows, in addition to stalk cutters and pulverizers. Around 1900, Vulcan purchased the South Bend (Ind.) Chilled Plow Co., allowing the company to claim, 'In the Vulcan Line can be found a plow for every purpose and the most up-to-date and satisfactory of its kind in the field.'

Fifty years before the merger, the Hayes Pump & Planter Co. of Galva, Ill., had achieved prominence for its two-and four-wheel corn planters. The easily recognizable Hayes four-wheel planter had two wheels on each side set at an angle to each other, thus '... duplicating the action of a pair of skillful human hands,' in covering the seed corn.

The Peoria (Ill.) Drill & Seeder Co. built a full line of grain drills, seeders and fertilizer spreaders under the names 'Illinois' and 'Peoria.' It is unclear just when the firm was established, but it was selling the Illinois grain drill in 1903. The Illinois and Peoria products were popular in the Midwest, and according to one advertisement, Peoria was'... the largest and oldest manufacturer of this type of farm equipment.'

The Roderick Lean Co. of Mansfield, Ohio, was the oldest of the four firms. Company lore had it that 'Roderick Lean, with the aid of only a hand forge, in a tiny one-room shop, laboriously forged out the first all-steel spike tooth harrow in America.' Lean took off from there, and by 1930, his company was making spike and spring tooth harrows, horse and tractor disc harrows, roller-pulverizers (cultipackers), harrow carts, tractor field cultivators, revolving scrapers, weeders and horse-drawn cultivators.

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