Tractors and Mother: undervalued, close to earth, and hardworking
Cowboy Bob Hill
In the one hundred years from 1850 to 1950 the American farming landscape changed dramatically due mostly to the introduction of farm tractors. Steam engines were first used by early tractors but then the internal combustion engine was introduced in the early twentieth century. The early steam engine tractor was gigantic and primitive looking even using chains on a rotating shaft to control steering.
Not long after they were introduced, farmers soon found that engine driven tractors were more economical to use than using animals to till the land, so tractors began selling widely across the land. Agricultural machinery dealers often received cattle as partial payment for tractors and they in turn would sell the cattle on the meat market. Farmall, one of the most familiar and famous names in tractor history was one of early tractors. Tractors, which were made to be work horses, had few niceties and few even had even a fuel gauge.
Tractors are most useful for cultivation purposes, so a tractor or tractors have been a must for farm owners, but tractors are also used in excavation, in manufacturing and industry, or on construction sites. The selection of an optimum equipment set and ultimately, the number of tractors necessary to farm. Is driven by farm size, availability of labor and custom services, crop selection, and cultural practices, such as the choice of tillage system. Even though the demand for tractor power increases with farm size generally, many commercial farms operate efficiently with only one tractor.
Tractors are designed to operate at different travel speeds, but the final drives are not necessarily designed for all torques theoretically available. Engine power, which typically ranges from about 12 to 120 horsepower or more and over the years have ranged between 20 and 400 horsepower, is transmitted through a gearbox usually having from 4 to10 speeds (these transmissions are manually controlled via a lever to determine how fast the tractor can go) to the differential gear which drives two large rear-drive wheels. Slow speeds are necessary to give the farmer more control while doing field work although some farm tractors can reach speeds up to 25 miles per hour.
Insufficient ballast can cause increased fuel consumption and excessive wheel slip so tractors can add weight and ballast to help in reducing wheel slip when pulling heavy loads. Tractors use large tires to avoid digging in and compressing the earth. Unless the tractor has four wheel drive only the rear tires really need to be large while the front tires can be small and smooth. Tractors which are used on irregular ground may have front axels mounted so that their left and right front ends independently rise and fall with the earth contours. Soil contour can, however, induce tractor vibrations, which can reduce driver's comfort and his capability in controlling the linked machinery.
Usually tractors are used to pull, but in some cases, push objects and are designed to pull either large loads using slow speeds or lighter loads at higher speeds. Field speeds up to 10 mph are may be used, but rangeland applications usually vary from 2 to 5 mph. Tractors are generally classified as two-wheel drive, two-wheel drive with front wheel assist, four-wheel drive (often with arcticulated steering), or tracked tractors (with either two or four powered rubber tracks).
In order to prevent rollover the hitching point for tractors is below the rear axles. Some people, in an attempt to get more weight / traction, have unfortunately attached to a point above the rear axle of the drive wheels but this can lead to disaster. When a tractor is used to free and tow a stuck vehicle, the vehicles should be hitched front-to-front with a chain using the towing tractor in reverse. This method transmits all the engine power of the towing tractor through the chain to the towed vehicle thus minimizing the risk for rollover.
Normally farm implements are attached to the rear of the tractor by either a drawbar or a three-point hitch. The three-point hitch, which allows the operator to lift the implement being towed and transfers the weight and stress of an implement to the rear wheels of the tractor, was invented by Harry Ferguson in 1926 and has been standard since the 1960s.
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