I was looking through a stack of old Country Gentleman magazines and these tidbits were in one from 1912 (that’s 100 years ago, folks).

An Ohio farmer purchased, eight years ago, a secondhand two-horsepower gasoline engine to use for pumping water. So well did it work that he bought line shafts, pulleys and belts, and employed the engine to run a cream separator, churn, washing machine, feed-grinder, corn-sheller, grindstone and buzz saw.

To make his wife’s job easier the farmer installed a soft-water tank in the attic of his house, connected with the range, which supplied hot and cold running water with the assistance of the engine. Not including his own labor the homemade “power plant” cost him about fifteen dollars, and has run eight years with only three dollars in repairs.

There are those who would call this the forerunner of mechanical power on the farm. We prefer to label it the application of brain power.  

I wonder – does anyone call their kitchen stove a range anymore? And why were they called ranges in the first place?

The moving-picture machine has proved to be a great educator; but this sputtering pedagogue is not infallible, as it frequently demonstrates by the incongruities which it flashes upon the screen. The other day while enjoying all the sensations of a trip through the West of yesterday, the spectators at the nickelodeon, or at least a few of them, were amused to see the faultlessly attired “cowpunchers” driving up the canyon a herd of – not wild-eyed Longhorns or even Whitefaces but – meek-eyed Jerseys and deep-uddered Holsteins.

Another bit of unintentional comedy was a haying scene. A six-animal team was hitched to a diminutive load of hay. The wheel team was oxen, the swing team were mules and the leaders were well-bred Percherons. The driver of that horse-mule-ox team deserves much credit.

Why wouldn’t it be a good plan for the “movie” magnates to employ agricultural experts and thus avoid such unintentional humor?

Then, this little ditty:

Well, drat them hens! When eggs is cheap they lay the hull place ankle-deep.

Just keeps me lame a-stoopin’ round a-pickin’ eggs up off the ground,

A-tryin’ to clean some corner out an’ give the crops a chance to sprout.

Just keeps me poor a-hirin’ hands to haul them eggs from off my lands.

They overflow the barns and sheds, the kitchen sink an’ family beds.

Don’t get no chance to eat or sleep, the way it is when eggs is cheap.


But drat them hens! When eggs is dear they sit around for half a year

Eatin’ my wallet to its marrow, with no more conscience than a sparrow;

Indulgin’ in a conversation on every subjec’ since Creation

Exceptin’ “eggs an’ how to lay ‘em.” Makes me so mad I want to slay ‘em.

Here’s eggs a-sellin’ by the carat and every darned hen is a parrot!

Just ornamentin’ this here sphere is all they do when eggs is dear.


But ‘pears to me, aside from jokes, that hens is purty much like folks.

Not carin’ what’s the worst or best, they want to do just like the rest.

By grab! Us folks is worse than hens; hens can’t lay eggs exceptin’ when’s

The layin’-time, but people could do different, often, if they would.

An’ we insist on doin’ what the rest is doin’, right or not.

No use to drive, no use to coax – so drat them hens! An’ drat us folks!


On the editorial page was this assessment of “Mr. Average Farmer.”

Beginning with Secretary Wilson’s (James Wilson of Iowa – Secretary of Agriculture from 1897 to 1913) grand total of $9,532,000,000 as the farm wealth production for 1912, we have an interesting problem. Divided among the 6,361,502 farms of the country this would be $1498 per farm. Our average farm, with its 138 acres, of which 75 are improved, is therefore producing $10.85 an acre. To produce this total, Mr. Average Farmer has $4476 invested in land, $994 in buildings, $199 in machinery and $774 in livestock, a total of $6443. If he charges himself five percent interest on this investment he must deduct $332.15 as an annual carrying charge. His remaining income, $1165, must pay all running expenses and the owner’s salary.

This margin offers scant support to the assertion that farmers are rolling in easily acquired wealth and are chiefly responsible for the increasing cost of living.

Wow! $199 invested in machinery? Even in 2010 dollars that would be just $4437.67 – a farmer today couldn’t buy even a good used tractor for that amount.

Finally this bit of advice to farmers:

You may be proud of your farm, but it isn’t necessary to tote it in on your wife’s new carpet.

My Grandfather Moore (Nandad) was farming during this period and I wonder if he, his wife and three young children got along on $1165 per year. Of course the figures quoted above were averages, so some farmers obviously were better off, while some made less. I think Nandad was probably in the upper range. 
 

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.