Author(s): Jim Glastonbury

Farming and Self Sufficiency

Tractors, unique in their uses, have undergone thousands of changes over the years to become one of the most handy machines one can have, in any form. There have been so many amazing discoveries and inventions in the history of mankind that it would be difficult to place them in order of importance. Many have revolutionized the way society works, and this could also be said of the humble tractor. Without it, it would be impossible to produce the vast amounts of food required by society today, and for this reason alone it must qualify as a small but essential cog in the vast machine that is the modern world. The earliest pioneer machines used steam traction rather than the new-fangled internal combustion engines, but technological break-throughs came thick and fast: diesel engines, Harry Ferguson's revolutionary three-point-hitch, sophisticated hydraulics, and the wonders of electronics in our own time. Henry Ford made tractors that small farmers could afford, International Harvester pioneered the 1920s Farmall - the first tractor able to cope with row crops - while allis-Chalmers introduced pneumatic rubber tires in the 1930s. Nearly 30 years later the Steiger brothers invented an entirely new breed, the giant four-wheel-drive articulated super-tractor. This book covers more than a century of tractor-making and features tractors that are regarded with something like affection - Case, Fordson, Massey-Ferguson, Minneapolis-Moline, Versatile - they are all here and many others. Tractors of all shapes, sizes, ages, colors and types - they are here in all their resplendent glory.