Heartland Acres Agribiton Center launches - Increase Your Ag IQ. Craig Johnson, Executive Director along with interns from the University of Northern Iowa will be working over the next few months to help increase awareness of our agricultural heritage. As part of their assignment at Heartland Acres, the interns are tasked with finding relevant and interesting stories about our agricultural history.

We begin with our first story about the plow. It was an integral and highly valuable tool for farms. The following story about the plow is the work of Jason Butz – UNI intern.

In 1797, Charles Newbold patented the first cast iron plow. However, the farmers of the time did not really trust the new invention, they felt the iron plow would damage the soil and promote the growth of weeds. It was not until 1814 when Jethro Wood patented the first cast iron plow with three interchangeable parts. Interchangeable parts gave it a huge advantage over Newbold’s one-piece plow.

John Deere would change the face of farming with the invention of the world’s first self polishing, cast, steel plow in 1837. It was named the “Grasshopper” and was ideally suited to cut through the fertile prairie ground of the Midwest.

Evolution of plow continued as farmers moved away from using draft animals to using the new and more powerful mechanized tractors. Farming operations became more productive and efficient in order to manage the ever increasing size of farms.

In the mid 20th century agriculture again evolved towards minimum tillage practices to reduce land erosion and cut down on operational costs. The plow began to disappear from use. Today you will find many of the plows from years ago sitting in fields, unused, or in a museum.

This story of the plow was brought to you by Heartland Acres Agribition and Event Center. Please, feel free to come and visit us to learn more about the plow and many other farm implements we have on display.

For more information about Heartland Acres please visit us at www.heartlandacresusa.com or call (319) 332.0123.

Heartland Acres Agribiton Center is a 501 (c) (3) non profit organization with an all volunteer Board of Directors. Heartland Acres operates on admissions, donations, grants, rental fees and gift shop sales to sustain ongoing operations. Heartland Acres preserves, protects, educates and entertains visitors with displays and activities which continue telling the story of our agricultural and automotive heritage. Heartland Acres is located at 2600 Swan Lake Blvd., Independence, IA 50644.
 

When Henry Ford introduced his Fordson Model F tractor to the American farmer in 1918, he fulfilled his desire, as stated in the early 1900's, "to lift the burden of farming from flesh and blood and put it on steel and motors." By the time Fordson production in the United States ceased in 1928, close to 750,000 of the machines had been manufactured.

Ford built only the tractor, declaring in early 1918 that he didn't want to sell implements and that they should be made and sold by the present implement people. The immediate popularity of the Fordson, and the lack of Ford built implements, caused the mouths of many farm machinery builders to water. They saw a huge market for their machines, and especially for plows. Henry considered his tractor a replacement for horses and felt that existing horsedrawn implements would be satisfactory, however it soon became obvious that more heavily built tractor plows were needed.

In 1918 Ford promised to sell a Fordson tractor and a 2-bottom plow from the Oliver Chilled Plow Works for $875, an attractive package price. This was news to Oliver's management who hadn't been consulted about the deal. Oliver did then get on board and advertised their Oliver No. 7 Gang plow, in addition to the No. 14 Two Way Plow and the No. 76 Middlebreaker, as "Special Fordson Farming Equipment." Ford didn't permit his dealers, many of them automobile agencies, to handle any farm machinery except for "approved" items such as the Oliver plows and Roderick Lean discs.

Another big-time plow maker, Deere & Co., flirted with Ford all through 1918. In March of that year, after several years of trying to develop a tractor of their own, Deere bought the Waterloo Gas Engine Company and its Waterloo Boy tractor. Deere's Plow Works, along with sales manager Frank Silloway, were excited about the Waterloo purchase since it would mean more plow sales in the future. However, only about 4000 Waterloo Boys had been sold in 1917 and yearly sales were projected to remain flat. Meanwhile, all the experts were predicting runaway sales of the Fordson; W.R. Morgan, manager of Deere's Harvester Works, said, "I think they will sell thousands of the Ford tractors as soon as they are on the market." Silloway and Plow Works manager H.B. Dineen got their heads together and worked to develop a strong, light, 2-bottom tractor plow especially for small tractors such as the Fordson.

In early 1918 the plowing demonstrations put on by Ford featured Oliver plows, but in March Dineen met with Henry and Edsel Ford, who liked the Deere plow — primarily because it was 180 pounds lighter than Oliver's. Ford asked that a set of the Deere plows be sent to Dearborn for testing and Silloway exulted: "The chances are we should build and sell fifteen to twenty thousand Ford tractor plows a year." At a meeting in May, Ford indicated the Deere plow was satisfactory and things looked rosy for Silloway, but Deere executives weren't sold on the idea and debated the issue all that summer.

Deere Vice President C.C. Webber generally was against selling through any outside distributors such as the Ford agents. However, he thought maybe the little Ford plow might be another matter, saying: "... if we do not make an arrangement with Ford, it may be that we will lose the sale of a lot of plows without doing our agents much good ..." Webber also wasn't sold on the worth of the Fordson, as he felt the materials used in its manufacture, in light of wartime shortages, might better be used for other (more important) purposes.

Finally, in September of 1918, the Board of Directors voted to not use any outside agents, including Ford. Theo Brown saw Ford in November and was told that "(Deere) had missed the big opportunity in not selling plows to Fordson distributors."

Ford continued to encourage Deere to develop a small plow for the Fordson, saying at one point that: "You (Deere) could build a hundred million of them." During 1920 Deere tested the No. 40 plow with the "Self-Adjusting Hitch" and, after approval by Ford, began to build them in quantity. A 1921 ad calls the No. 40: "The Plow the Fordson Needs" and goes on to say, "The John Deere No. 40 Tractor Plow, built especially for use with the Fordson Tractor, gives Fordson owners real plowing economy."

An ad for the John Deere No. 40 Fordson plow. [From the Feb. 7, 1925 issue of Country Gentleman magazine in the author’s collection] 

The John Deere No. 40 tractor plow stayed in the lineup well into the 1930's, but after about 1925 it was renamed the No. 40C and all reference to the Fordson tractor was dropped. Later ads called the No. 40C: "The only plow built for small tractors, with the great draft-reducing combination of self-adjusting hitch and rolling landside." 

I don't know how many No. 40 plows were sold for use behind Fordson tractors, but chances are there were a lot. After a couple of disastrous years during the 1920-'21 depression (only 79 Waterloo Boy tractors had been sold in all of 1921), Deere introduced the John Deere Model D in 1923. The new tractor was an instant success; by 1925 the tractor operation was in the black, and the sale of plows to go behind Fordson tractors wasn't nearly as important to Silloway, now Vice President of Marketing, as it had been in 1918.