Banking on Common Sense

Image Gallery This shot of the Common Sense 8-cylinder tractor is unusual because most photos of the tractor show its right side. Here, the photographer put the focus on the engine, magneto, governor and carburetor, all easily accessible.

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When the Common Sense Gas Tractor Co., Minneapolis, entered the market in 1914, it was a difficult time for tractor builders. The market wasn’t the problem: Sales of tractors were skyrocketing. The real challenge was the lack of knowledge: How to build the best tractor?

In the years leading to 1920, manufacturers were experimenting with tractor design. In 1915, a writer in Modern Gas Tractor reported, “Considerable interest is being displayed in the three-wheel constructions. In fact, most of the light tractors offered this year have a single traction member and two steering wheels,” exactly the construction of the Common Sense.

The other stumbling block was the farmer, who had grown wary of too-good-to-be-true claims made by tractor manufacturers. Though it seems quaint today, prior to 1920 tractors were often built and sold without benefit of field-testing. The fastest-selling tractor of the time, for example, was the Little Bull. But when used in the field, the tractor was destroyed by dust grinding its open gears. Ford Tractor Co., Minneapolis, operated in a less than ethical manner (see Farm Collector, July 2008), and numerous other companies made exaggerated claims. Farmers were understandably nervous.

An educated design

H.W. Adams, tractor builder for Adams-Farnham Co., Minneapolis, from 1909-10, and Minneapolis Steel & Machinery Co., from about 1911-13, took notice of those problems. From a Dec. 31, 1917, article in Farm Implements: “I knew that too many tractors were the result of theoretical experts who worked on drawing boards, instead of the results given by tractors under actual working conditions in the hands of farmers,” Adams said. “I saw where such tractors could not help but fall down, so I decided to start from the other end. I learned first the practical features necessary, and then worked out the proper mechanical methods of obtaining those results.”

Experienced with steam threshing machines, stationary gas engines and other power machinery, Adams assisted in designing and building a new tractor for Minneapolis Steel & Machinery in 1913. When the experimental tractor was shipped to North Dakota, he went along. “He watched the tractor buck up against actual working conditions,” noted a writer in Farm Implements. “And not just for a couple of passes up and down the field. Adams stayed there for two years, working out improvements in design while eliminating the weaknesses of the tractor, until he knew everything he could know. When he returned to the factory, he surprised the officials there with his knowledge and concepts that they hadn’t heard anything about.”

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