Route 5, Maquoketa, Iowa 52060. (The photograph photocopies are
through the courtesy of John Deere and Company, Moline,
Illinois.
Deere and Company’s involvement with the production of
tractors includes some unique experimental firsts. There is Max
Sklovsky’s one-piece, cast iron body which was the first
experimental tractor to use such a frame. C. H. Melvin’s
integral power lift was unique when he experimented with his model
at the Deere Plow Works from 1912-1914. And Joseph Dain’s
all-wheel drive tractor that could change from low to high gear
without clutching was certainly unusual in design.
John Deere was anxious to retain its important position in the
implement trade and it was only prudent to recognize the potential
change the tractor might bring to the implement industry. Thus,
through several board directives, engineers and designers were put
to work on a broad front. A motor plow design, a heavy tractor and
various motor cultivators were all pursued from about 1912 to 1921.
When Deere acquired the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company, Waterloo,
Iowa, in 1918, most tractor work was focused on the re-design of
the Waterloo Boy.
There were quite a few motor cultivators on the market by 1916.
International Harvester, Moline Universal (Moline Plow Company), B.
F. Avery, Emerson-Brantingham, Toro, Allis-Chalmers, Parrett and
Bailor all produced either one or two row models. The Model D
Moline Universal, introduced in 1916, was perhaps the best known of
the early motor cultivators; it was one of the first tractors to
use a storage battery for starting, ignition and lighting.
Unfortunately, the cross-mounted motor had no air cleaner and
limited forward vision further decreased its usefulness. The
International Harvester motor cultivator also presented some
distinct limitations. Its center of gravity was so high that it was
dangerous to operate on hilly ground. Also, the small rear drive
wheels left objectionable ruts in the field. Later models of the
International included a PTO which was probably a result of the
influence of E. A. Johnston and Bert R.
Benjamin, two men of extraordinary engineering ability. While
articulation of the front and rear sections of the Moline provided
a means of dodging row crops, it had the drawback of dividing the
operator’s attention between steering and dodging the rigs. The
International motor cultivator was faulted by this same
limitation.
Theo Brown, Early tractor Development, this was one of the
twenty-five ‘Tractivators’ built at the Marseilles Plant in
East Moline in 1917.
Sent in by Lowell Carlson, Route 5, Maquoketa, Iowa 52060 –
picture through
Theo Brown, Early Tractor Development. Deere experimented with
the idea of running the Tractivator backwards, using it without the
cultivators for such work as plowing. There was already an effort
to create a mult-purpose machine.
Sent in by Lowell Carlson, Route 5, Maquoketa, Iowa 52060 –
picture through
Theo Brown, Early Tractor Development, the International.
Sent in by Lowell Carlson, Route 5, Maquoketa, Iowa 52060 –
picture through
The concept of a motorized cultivator followed the pattern of
horsedrawn cultivators except a steering wheel replaced the reins.
The first man to place a pivot-axle cultivator ahead of a tractor
was apparently a farmer from Sheldon, Iowa, J. B. O’Donnell. He
applied for a patent for his invention July 14, 1915; however,
O’Donnell did not use laterally swinging rigs. Five designers,
four of them with Deere and Company, independently arrived at the
idea of using laterally swinging rigs mounted on the front portion
of a tractor. A sketch made by Joseph Dain, February 8, 1916, is
apparently the earliest record of Deere’s activity in tractor
cultivators. The sketch showed a tractor with front mounted rigs,
single rear drive wheel and rear mounted hopper-cooled engine.
Dain, who was elected to the Board of Directors in 1914, was one of
the leading advocates of tractor development or the board. A design
by Theo Brown, an engineer at Deere ‘a Marseilles Plant, was
the company’s first actual motor cultivator constructed. It
used parts from a horse-drawn cultivator and was pushed by a 7? hp.
New-Way air-cooled engine. The outfit was mounted on a chassis
equipped with manure spreader wheels. The engine was a big share of
the cost at $115. It was orginally estimated the machine could be
sold to farmers for about $300; eventually less provided production
increased.
The Ronning brothers, of Deere and Company, won the five-way
race to secure patents for a front mounted motor cultivator. Of the
five men, the Ronning brothers, Joseph Dain, Theo Brown and E. A.
Johnston, the Ronning brothers patents were issued first in 1925,
the same year Farmall sold their first 250 row crop tractors. When
equipped with cultivators, they were held to infringe on the
Ronning patents and Farmall was forced to pay a royalty of $1.00
per tractor — equipped with cultivator or not.
The Brown motor cultivator was extensively rebuilt to make it
suitable for manufacturing. In addition a more powerful motor was
sought; a motor designed by Theodore Menges and built under
contract by Associated Manufacturers of Waterloo, Iowa, proved to
be a failure when tested and McVicker of Minneapolis, Minnesota,
was retained to design a new engine. When the blueprints were
completed, the new design was again produced by Associated
Manufacturers. In the meantime, experimentation with the Brown
motor cultivator continued. It was run backwards with the idea of
attaching other implements such as a plow. R. C. Livesay, a member
of the Deere Harvester Works Experimental Department, attached a
mower to the reverse end of the motor cultivator and pushed the
implement. However useful, it apparently made mowing a two-man
operation.
After preliminary reports by H. B. Dinneen, manager of the Plow
Department, the Board of Directors, gave approval to construct
twenty-five, one row ‘Tractivators’ equipped with McVicker
two-cylinder hopper-cooled engines. The Tractivators were built at
the Marseilles Plant which is now the John Deere Spreader Works.
The first unit was completed February 17, 1917. Two of the motor
cultivators were sent to the San Antonio, Texas, test grounds for
earliest possible field testing and arrangements were made for each
branch house to receive a tractor to work through the season under
observation. April 10, 1917, L. R. Clausen, who was named to the
Board of Directors in 1919, and a vice-president in 1921, was
placed in charge of motor cultivator experimentation. Factory men
were instructed to follow the tractors and make daily reports. When
the reports began to filter back from the branch houses, the
Tractivators showed a discouraging lack of capacity over a man with
a one row cultivator and a team. Mechanical problems were also
revealed. The one speed transmission was too slow. The engine
lacked sufficient power for hilly ground and it showed an excessive
consumption of lubricating oil and evaporation of water – as much
as two gallons per hour. A leaky carburetor reduced engine
efficiency even further. In comparison with the International
Harvester motor cultivator, even with its faults, the John Deere
model could only half as much in a day and offered no advantages
over a team and a one row cultivator.
From Theo Brown, Early Tractor Development. This drawing was the
beginning of the Tractivator design.
Sent in by Lowell Carlson, Route 5, Maquoketa, Iowa 52060 –
picture through
From Theo Brown, Early Tractor Development (Moline: John Deere
and Company, 1953 – out of print).
Sent in by Lowell Carlson, Route 5, Maquoketa, Iowa 52060 –
picture through
As a result, Deere and Company dropped the one row motor
cultivator idea. In retrospect, the Brown Tractiva-tor was designed
along implement lines — not automative. Overall it showed a lack
of engineering but was important to that company’s efforts at
producing a perfected tractor. The Tractivator was transitionary,
new design ideas were evolving from its shortcomings. It may be
that engineers perhaps learn more from failures than from qualified
successes.
I fear that Theo Brown’s reputation as an engineer has
suffered from my brief account of some of the fascinating tractor
lore in his book, Early Tractor Development. Brown received his
first patent in 1903, for an end-gate for a manure spreader and
culminated a series of spreader inventions in 1908, with the
beater-on-the-axle construction. He joined John Deere in 1911,
where his manure spreader ideas were put into commercial
production. His motor cultivator activities have been but briefly
sketched. He was deeply involved also in other tractor development
projects with Deere. The period from 1917-1919, was largely spent
in design and production work related to Deere’s manufacture of
combat wagons for World War I. Theo Brown was elected to the
directorate of Deere and Company in 1923, and this marked the
beginning of his unending work of intracompany standardization. His
work also included the design of a tractor lift system which
reached commercial production in 1928. Theo Brown received the
Cyrus Hall McCormick Gold Medal in 1935, for his work in
agricultural engineering, an award he justly deserved.
This is a snapshot of my father leaving this farm yard with his
Rumely Oil Pull 20-40 and Minneapolis sheller for another corn
shelling job. We lived at Sibley, Iowa at that time. This was in
the 1920s. My father was in the threshing and shelling business for
a long time. His first outfit was an 8 hole sheller powered by a
portable gas engine. He mounted it on sled runners in the winter
and pulled from one job to another by a team of mules
The first record of Deere & Co. in the development of the
motor cultivator is a sketch by Joseph Dain dated Feb. 9, 1916.
This sketch preserved in the Deere & Co. Patent Department
files, is shown in Figure 45. Patent application was made June 6,
1916, and Patent No.1,667,843 was issued May 1,1928. This structure
was never built.
