The First American Farm Tractors

This is truly an American story. A story of individuals struggling to achieve a goal espoused by National Leaders, a story of a struggle to find a faster, cheaper and more humane way for farmers to plow their ground. This book presents a glimpse into the long American saga of developing machines to cultivate the land. To the extent possible, the words of the people observing or directly involved in America's development of mechanical cultivation have been used. Many of the images in this book are contemporary to the story being told. This saga starts in the 1830s, and spans several generations of American inventors, and stops at the end of 1916, the start of the final phase in the development of the American farm tractor. 1917 was when America entered the First World War, and was the eve of Henry Ford's entry into the tractor business. Both events significantly advanced the mechanization of American agriculture.