Two Americans in Paris

American entries in a French plowing competition.

By Sam Moore
Published on May 1, 2024
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Photo from the 10 October, 1912, issue of The Commercial Motor magazine.
Four of the French machines in the contest. The two top ones were of the rotary tiller type. The Bajac locked itself into position at one end of the field by means of the triangular spuds behind each rear wheel and used a rear winch and cable to pull the plow across the field.

In 1928, George Gershwin wrote a symphonic poem for orchestra he called “An American in Paris,” upon which was based a 1951 film starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. The following story is about two earlier Americans in Paris, or more accurately, in Bourges, France, about one hundred fifty miles south of Paris.

In early October, 1912, the annual agrimotor exhibition of the Automobile Club du Centre de France was held at Bourges, and part of the exhibition was a plowing competition that had initially received seventeen entries, although only twelve showed up. The list of entries had an international flavor, with Fosters of Lincoln in Lincolnshire, England, long famous for their steam plowing engines, entering one of their newly designed petrol tractors, although it later withdrew. The rest of the entries were French, except for two from the United States.

The two U.S. entries included an International Harvester 25 HP, as well as a Case 30 HP steam traction engine, the only steam rig in the contest. The IHC machine was said to be quite familiar to French farmers, having been entered in several previous competitions, with several in actual use on French farms. The IHC machine was described as a single cylinder model with a horizontal cylinder of 10 inch by 15 inch bore and stroke. Although the article in The Commercial Motor doesn’t say so, I’d guess the machine was a Mogul Type C.

In France, “The International Harvester Company” was known as C.I.M.A., which stood for “Cie Internationale des Machines Agricole,” making deciphering the results a little confusing to American eyes, or at least to mine.

On the first day of the two-day competition, one of the smaller French two-plow machines broke a vital eccentric wheel after going only a short distance and had to be withdrawn. Another small French machine with a single front drive and steering wheel kept going “…but did not do more than scratch the surface.” The C.I.M.A. (IHC) machine pulled five bottoms on the level and downgrade, but only three uphill. It was said to have had some early engine trouble but then did very good work. The Case steamer was on the most hilly section of the field and pulled eight bottoms downhill and six up, and “…was the most business-like on the field.”

The second day a different field was used, “…the soil of which was quite heavy and had been rendered greasy by the night’s downpour of rain.” It was also a distance from the first field and could only be reached by first crossing six hundred yards of low, wet ground. The two smaller machines, the Lefebvre crawler, and the Bajac with large, wide treaded drive wheels crossed the soft ground and got right to work. Another of the big French tractors didn’t even try to cross the muddy field and withdrew from the contest.

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