THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 3 POINT HITCH Even before Henry Ford made the model T, or even his first car, he wanted to develop a machine to make the life of farmers easier. The term “tractor” had not been coined yet, and all that were available at the time were either steam traction engines, or the very first “gas traction engines”. Steam traction engines had been around since the 1870’s , and were very large machines that were essentially steam locomotives adapted to run on open ground instead of railroad tracks. They were a vast improvement over working with horses, especially on the vast open fields of the great plains, but they had a few major drawbacks. They used large quantities of fuel, required at least 2 people to operate them (at least when plowing) , and had a tendency to collapse the flimsy bridges of the day when crossing creeks and rivers, which usually had disastrous, explosive results. If you took the safer route of fording the river, there was a good chance of sinking into the river bottom mud until you couldn’t get out without enormous effort. They also were known to start a prairie fire or two with sparks from their exhaust. The fuel and fire problems caused the development of the early gas traction engines, which were essentially large stationary internal combustion engines (most of which started on gasoline and then switched to kerosene for their main fuel) that were mounted on the running gear of an old steam traction engine. Their size was very close to that of the steam traction engine, and they cost a pretty penny at first, too. Henry would have been aware of these early tractors, but he was so involved in getting cars made that it took until the 1916-1918 era for him to get his solution, the Fordson tractor into production. But when he did, he used the same techniques that had made the model T such a good seller and applied them to his tractor. Before long, Fordsons were made in Dearborn, Michigan, in England, and in Ireland. Like the model T, they were affordable and reliable, although they soon earned a reputation for being cantankerous starters unless they were maintained very well and the operator was skilled. They also developed a more sinister reputation as “widowmakers” due to their habit of flipping over backward if a plow bottom encountered an underground obstruction or a bit of really hard ground. This was caused partly by the worm gear differential they used, which tended to allow the worm gear (pinion) to “climb the ring gear” if the tractor’s forward motion suddenly stopped. In the UK, this tendency to flip over came to the attention of an inventive young man named Harry Ferguson, and he developed a parallel link hitch system that could be attached to the Fordson tractor and would automatically raise the plow if it began to pull too hard, thereby keeping the tractor itself and it’s operator right side up. By the time the Fordson went out of production in the US in the late 1920’s, the Ferguson System had grown quite popular in the UK. In 1939, Harry Ferguson traveled to Michigan and met with Henry Ford to propose a joint venture to produce a new tractor which would incorporate the Ferguson hydraulic 3 point hitch system as standard equipment. Henry thought the system was great, and the two shook hands on the deal, whereby Ford Motor Co would build the tractor and sell it in the US, and Ferguson would sell it in the UK. Ferguson would get a share of the profits and the tractor would be known as the Ford-Ferguson. In reality, the tractor became known almost universally by it’s model number- 9N. 9N’s and their wartime variant, the 2N were made until 1947. The 9N had a 3 point hitch system in which the 2 bottom links lifted the implement, while the center or top link kept the implement parallel to the ground and, through a spring loaded valve system, automatically caused the implement to raise if the pull (or draft as it is called) became too great. The hydraulic system that powered the hitch was driven by the power take-off (PTO), and so it only worked if the PTO was engaged and the main clutch engaged. The tractor had about 18 hp, a 3 speed transmission, and individual turning brakes, with the left brake pedal and the clutch pedal on the left and the right brake pedal on the right. They had wide front axles that swept back in such a manner that if you wanted to change the wheel spacing, you did not have to interfere with the steering links, of which there were 2, one for each wheel, with no common tie rod between the wheels. The operator sat with his legs straddling the transmission, thereby giving a low, safe center of gravity. Today, we call this type of tractor a utility tractor. The famous “handshake agreement” held up until Henry Ford turned over control of Ford Motor Co to Henry Ford II in 1948. One of the first things Henry II did was dissolve the agreement and replace the 9N with a slightly different model, the 8N. The 8N used a slightly more powerful engine, had a 4 speed transmission, and had both brake pedals on the right side of the tractor and just the clutch on the left. This was a much handier arrangement. It still had the hitch hydraulic pump driven by the PTO, and still used the top link to control the depth of the implement, but with some minor changes to the system. Everything else was pretty much the same as on the 9N. Ferguson was not happy with Henry II or FOMOCO, and he sued the company for patent infringement in the amount of $250,000,000, an unimaginable sum in that day and age. After a lengthy battle, Ferguson won the suit and then began building the Ferguson tractor, a tractor that looked remarkably similar to the Fords, both in this country and in the UK. Later, Ferguson would merge with the Massey Harris company, to become (eventually) Massey Ferguson- but that’s another story!