(800) 853-2651
SHOP NOW

Greatest Farm Equipment innovations of the 20th Century

N

NY 986

Well-known Member
Down below they are talking about sickle mowers versus haybines. I pointed out how much the haybine meant to making hay upon its introduction. What were some of the other important innovations of the 20th Century in farm equipment? Auger-flail system in a manure spreader? Fine even spread of material versus chunks of manure flopping over the back of a box-beater spreader. Cylinder cutterhead in a forage harvester. Even cut of material along with the ability to process more material per minute versus a flywheel type harvester. Rotary combine which allows harvest of material in tough conditions versus a cylinder machine. Depth wheel at the seed drop point along with separate closing wheel system on a row crop planter.
 
Auto steer. Some of you might laugh at it but Auto steer has enabled this old guy to stay in the field almost as long as I did when I was younger. And it's easier for this stiff old driver to keep track of what is going on behind the tractor because it takes more effort to look back there.
 
Adjustable wide front axle on farm tractors.

Actually, my father fabricated one on a Fordson before the manufacturers thought of it.
 
I?m not laughing. Auto steer/gps/swath control also saves on the inputs in addition to what you said. And the beauty of auto steer is you can retrofit to vintage tractors and equipment.
 
I think auto steer was mostly a 21st century development so doesn?t quite fit here? Since I haven?t used it, I don?t really grasp the difficulty of holding a steering wheel vs just sitting there doing nothing, but I hear it helps tremendously so good enough. Driving tractor is dull enough, then take away the main activity and I would think I would become terribly bored but again I haven?t tried it so my opinion doesn?t count.

I would say a floating header on a bean combine was about the biggest in saving beans and other crops during harvest, speeds up harvest as well.

The innovations on a JD 7000 planter to control seed depth and spacing for corn planting is on top for spring time. Such innovations came from all makers and in steps and continues now, but the 7000 was probably the one biggest step forward in this.

A disc mower is quite a step up from a sickle mower, not sure it is widespread enough to be greatest ever but for cutting forages.... a round baler also greatly changed how forage can be collected, together they really speeded up both dry hay and silage hay.

Paul
 
How about just combines in general? Being able to cut and thresh in one pass versus having to cut, bundle, and move the crop to the threshing machine was a huge leap forward.
 

Automatic Milker has to be at the top of the list. sure would be a lot smaller dairies without it... maybe that would be ok too...

hydraulics on tractors

rear PTO
then live rear PTO

rubber pneumatic tires
 
Mechanical front wheel assist. Lower link draft sensing. Positive pressure air planters. Rubber tracks and 4 track tractors. IVT transmissions. Flex heads. Hydraulic reel speed. Turret unloading augers on combines. Continuous flow grain dryers. Disk chisels and disk rippers. One pass soil finishers. Rolling harrows.
 
Bill, of course, how could everyone else forget? But remember, only the model 3A, the earlier ones were lemons, Ralph Nader's grandfather attempted to have them removed from every field on the planet.
 
If we are talking 19th Century then the reaper would be almost as important as the cotton gin. Could not have fed the growing cities without it.
 
I noticed several of you said round balers. I don't think there are a dozen round balers in this county so around here they would not get many votes. My dad who was older said one of the best was hybred seed corn.
 
OK can't count the combine, it was invented in 1834.
Rotatory Combine should count IMO.

Loaders.

Large round & square baler.

Contrary to popular belief the Farmall Regular didn't get rid of horses. WWII did that. Lot of young men came back from the war with a pocket full of cash to spend. Back to the farm and that old horse or mule. Then the variety of tractors available drove the horses off the farm for good. The claim that Farmall was responsible for that was a great ad run by Farmall.

Rick
 
Innovations apparently drove a lot of farmers out of business in 1900 around 40 percent were farming by 2000 around 2% so the vast majority got Innovated right off the farm.
Like what is happening in the dairy business today 'progress' and 'innovation' is driving the majority of farmers out of the business.Like hogs and poultry innovations have turned the people that raise them from independent owner operators into basically sharecroppers or worse really.
 
(quoted from post at 19:33:42 04/10/19) OK can't count the combine, it was invented in 1834.
Rotatory Combine should count IMO.

Loaders.

Large round & square baler.

Contrary to popular belief the Farmall Regular didn't get rid of horses. WWII did that. Lot of young men came back from the war with a pocket full of cash to spend. Back to the farm and that old horse or mule. Then the variety of tractors available drove the horses off the farm for good. The claim that Farmall was responsible for that was a great ad run by Farmall.

The letter series were in full production before the war, S0 the 330,000 f series tractors plus the 100,000 or so McCormick tractors built before the war didn't displace the horse? The puny F12 could replace 3 teams easy, so if we use that number as average that put 2,580,000 horses out to pasture before the war. The Farmall row crop revolution wins this one.


Rick
Click to expand...
 
(reply to post at 20:48:40 04/10/19)
Click to expand...

People didn't have the money. There was first the great depression that the US didn't say wasn't recovered from until 1942 and the dust bowl. Money was tight. About the times things recovered the war was on. There were about 35 million farmers back in that day. And how many tractors? So 330,000 plus 100,000, plus all the other tractors made didn't even come close to 35 million. IH made and sold about 975000 tractors before the letter series came out (that's from about 1911 to 1939) . THey made on average 27XXX H's a year for the entire production run for a total of 391,227. So 3 years prior to WWII at 27944 a year totals about 83, 832. (I'll bet because of the depression that number is real high). But anyway that would be a total of about 1,060,000 before WWII. And that's being generous. Plus IIRC IH/Farmall was outselling everyone until the N series Ford came out. Now add in all the other numbers from all the other manufacturers and you still are only going to account for less than 10% of the farms prior to WWII. People just didn't have the money. And those who did were being very careful with it. And then you had farms like the one owned by my wife's grand father. He had 3 tractors prior to WWII breaking out. Big wheat grower in ND at the time. But by and large most farms were still using horses right up to the mid 40's. IH/Farmall used the ad gimmick of claiming to have replaced the horse.

Now here is the real kicker. In the space of 13 years Ford sold 830,176 N series tractors. So really Ford did more to get horses off the farm than IH did. :lol: Yea total IH sold more letter series than Ford sold N's but the N was one size when compared with the WD9 down to the A.

Oh by the way, I like IH tractors. Have a 706 and 1206 here and a Ford 860. But I love history. So not picking.

Rick
 
I do remember dad and grandpa talking about how nice live PTO, would be when unplugging things.How hydraulics improved implements, with no more wheels sliding while trying to lift them, with the old clutch lift mechanism. Cornhead was much better with the stripper plates, and how much less corn loss there was, over the nubbins going through the rolls on a picker. The McKee hay chopper over having to trip slings in the mow and the time saved over the hayloader. Spraying for weeds over cultivating and the wet times not being able to cultivate.
And no more horses according to grandpa. He hated them to work with would always want to stomp or move just as you would try to do something.
 
If any one tractor replaced horses directly it was the Allis Chalmers B which could do the work of a team of horses or mules cheap to buy came with a variety of attachments that were about the
same size a team would pull.And was simple built and very reliable.
 
(quoted from post at 04:46:29 04/11/19) If any one tractor replaced horses directly it was the Allis Chalmers B which could do the work of a team of horses or mules cheap to buy came with a variety of attachments that were about the
same size a team would pull.And was simple built and very reliable.
Click to expand...

Not really, they only built about 121,000 of them. Although AC did run one of the better ad campaigns leading up to the horse being retired. In fact through the war years (to 1945) including crawlers AC from it's start in tractors only built about 500,000 tractors. No one tractor company was responsible for the horse being put out to pasture.

So add the 500,000 AC's to the just over a million IH tractors plus about 550,000 to 1941 from JD and we are no where near the 35,000,000 farmers. And the other makers darn sure didn't account for nearly 33,000,000 tractors.

Guys we as a group look at the history of farming with tractors because we as a group like tractors. And no one really documented the decline of the horse. When you talk WWI and II you hear about how they were used by the military and how they helped the US produce enough food to export to our allies. And they were significant in that it allowed more land to be tilled by one person. And still no one documented the decline of the horse.

And TF is right. A lot of these innovations did put a lot of farmers out of business. But one the other hand a lot of those farmers who disappeared really disappeared not because of equipment but because of lifestyle changes. The idea of working sun up to sun down in a subsistence operation (raising enough to survive on only selling excess) was dying out. People wanted a better life than making clothing out of feed bags and nothing but work.

Rick
 
I vote for the "pill". This allowed the wives to spend more time in the barn or field helping out than up to the house incubating or caring for a baby. My wife can out work most men, even milked up to two weeks before having our last child. After the Baby comes now she has to spend a lot of time healing up and feeding the baby. She is a true blessing and when not able to help me I really hurt. Al
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
2 nice JD 55s and 303 IH to sell - Wellman,IA
Replies
5
Views
2K
Mike Aylward
M
D
Case Collector Equipment @ Auction 6-20-09
Replies
0
Views
976
DGeor53536
D
A
Auction this Saturday.
Replies
4
Views
1K
Anonymous-0
A
Tractor Parts Tractor Manuals

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Copyright © 1997-2024 Yesterday's Tractor Co.

All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this website, including design and content, without written permission is strictly prohibited. Trade Marks and Trade Names contained and used in this Website are those of others, and are used in this Website in a descriptive sense to refer to the products of others. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER: Tradenames and Trademarks referred to within Yesterday's Tractor Co. products and within the Yesterday's Tractor Co. websites are the property of their respective trademark holders. None of these trademark holders are affiliated with Yesterday's Tractor Co., our products, or our website nor are we sponsored by them. John Deere and its logos are the registered trademarks of the John Deere Corporation. Agco, Agco Allis, White, Massey Ferguson and their logos are the registered trademarks of AGCO Corporation. Case, Case-IH, Farmall, International Harvester, New Holland and their logos are registered trademarks of CNH Global N.V.

Yesterday's Tractors - Antique Tractor Headquarters
Website Accessibility Policy

Back
Top