For more than fifty years, the proud name “Farmall” stood for smooth, dependable row-crop tractors. IHC was the first tractor builder to develop a successful row-crop tractor, aptly named the “Farmall,” the design of which would be copied by virtually every other manufacturer.
When gas tractors were developing during the first fifteen years of the 20th Century, they were based on the heavy steam traction engines that preceded them. About the time of the Great War, lighter machines were demanded and built, but they were still meant for heavier work such as plowing, fitting ground, and belt power, and weren’t practical for planting and cultivating row-crops, such as corn and cotton. Cultivation of such crops was to control weeds and loosen the soil to let water penetrate more easily, while the dirt that was thrown up around the base of the plants helped to strengthen them and prevent lodging. It was common practice to cultivate corn two or three times before “laying it by,” so a good cultivating machine was an important consideration to row-crop farmers.
Some farm equipment builders recognized that the row-crop farmer had little incentive to motorize his farm unless they could give him a machine that was easier, cheaper, faster, and which would do just as good work as he could do with horses. A study made in the early ’20s revealed that only six percent of the farms in the six Corn Belt states had tractors. These farmers felt that as long as they must keep enough horses or mules to do their cultivating, they may as well use them for all the other work as well. Clearly, a need existed, but it was one that tractor manufacturers were slow to fill, partly due to conservatism, but mostly because of the difficulty in designing a successful general purpose machine that could do all the work on a row-crop farm.
IHC tractor engineers had discussed the merits of a universal tractor as early as 1910 and, in 1916, had patented a two-row motor cultivator. This one-crop machine was too specialized and expensive for most farmers, but Harvester engineers experimented with many uses for, and configurations of, the motor cultivator. Photos exist in the IHC archives of the machine pushing or pulling just about every implement then in use, giving the engineers valuable experience that helped them to later create the Farmall tractor.
In July 1921, the legendary general manager of IHC Alexander Legge called a meeting of his top executives to find a way to counter Henry Ford’s rapid takeover of the tractor market. Edward A. Johnson, head of Harvester’s engineering department, and his chief tractor engineer, Bert Benjamin, pushed for further development of the row-crop tractor, even at that time called the Farmall, assuring Legge that the proposed machine was much better than the Fordson.
Birth of the Farmall didn’t come easily. An industry insider wrote, “No development in the industry was regarded with more distrust and wholesale opposition, than the suggested general-purpose tractor.” This opposition came from within the company, and the first Farmalls were released almost in secret, with no publicity at all. Under normal circumstances, the highly conservative Harvester management would likely never have gambled on the experimental new tractor, but they believed that something drastic must be done to meet the threat from Ford, who was selling almost three quarters of all the new tractors then being bought.
Even though the new Farmall was a well-kept secret, twenty-two were built in 1923 and put into farmer’s fields for extensive testing. The Farmall worked; two of these machines were operated for 15,000 hours without trouble. Texas farmers who tested the tractor were so pleased that IHC decided to release the new machine. One feature adopted as a result of these tests was “Triple Control,” a system of cables and pulleys that allowed the operator to use only the steering wheel to steer the tractor, shift the cultivator gangs and apply either individual rear wheel brake. This allowed for both close cultivation and short turns at row ends.
The Farmall was tall, with large rear wheels that gave 30 inches of clearance beneath a wide rear axle that could straddle two rows. The small front wheels were set close together to allow short turns and to run between the rows. Cultivators were mounted in front and to each side so the operator could watch the plants he was cultivating. The tractor was equipped with a power take off shaft to drive binders and harvesters and mounted mowers, while a belt pulley was available to drive hammer mills, balers, small threshers, etc.
205 Farmalls were built in 1924 and priced at $825. A variety of mounted implements was offered for the machine, including cultivators, mowers and two and four-row planters. Powered by a 4-cylinder, 3-3/4 X 5 inch engine, the Farmall turned 9.35 drawbar and 18.03 belt horsepower on the rated load test at Nebraska. It produced 12.70 drawbar horsepower and 2,727 pounds of pull on the maximum load test.
The dramatic success of the Farmall finished off the Fordson. Ford stopped production in the US in 1927 (in-stock Fordson tractors were still being sold in 1928). However, other competitors soon entered the fray with row-crop tractors of their own, most of which aped the Farmall design of large rear wheels and small, closely spaced front wheels. The ones that tried other wheel configurations, such as Deere with the three-row General Purpose, Minneapolis-Moline and its KT Kombination Tractor, and Massey-Harris’ 4-wheel drive General Purpose, soon switched to the preferred tricycle design.
