Tractor History by A.C. Seyfarth -- 1910-1934

              were the hitches and balks incident to a first trial, but the experiioBnt was measurably a success."

With the close of the Civil War the West began to open up, money became plentiful, and the manufacture of agricultural machines was carried on in extensive plants with impsroved facilities. McCormick's har¬ vester factory at Chicago was a beehive of industry. D. M. Osborne of Auburn, N. Y., was beginning reaper production in quantity. "Bill Whiteley" and his reaper had already given Springfield, Ohio, the name of The Reaper City. The boom in agriculture was in full swing. There seemed to be a feverish anxiety on the part of many to get into the imple¬ ment business in some way or other. By 1870 more than 2,000 establishments were manufacturing farm machines. This is the high water mark in the history of the industry. Twenty years previous, just when steam was first being applied to agriculture in 1849, there were about 1,300 small estab¬ lishments not employing all told more than 7,000 hands, and the value of whose products was about $6,000,000. By 1870 the product had increased in value eight-fold. While the value of the product continiied to increase, the number of establishments gradually decreased, until in 1910 there were only about 640 manufacturers of agricultiaral implements, and in 1920 only 585, including 90 manufactiirers of gas tractors. The total factory value of this farm equipment manufactirred reached the astounding total of $536,945,000.
This boom in manufacturing indicates the prosperity that was coming to the farmer and to all those engaged in agriculture. Farming was becoming a business. More power was needed. For many years the thresher manufactvu'ers wer^ not disposed to encourage the manufacture of portable steam enginesi^Tbeir shops were not equipped to manufacture them. By 1870, however, most of them saw the light and began to adopt steam engines as part of their business. John A. Pitts, founder of the Buffalo Pitts Company, Merritt & Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan, be¬ gan manufacturing steam engines about 1870. A little later followed Gaar Scott & Company, A, B, Farquhar, Russell & Company, C, Aultman, J, I, Case, Huber, and many others.
Gradually arose a demand to make the portable steam engine a self-propelling unit, so that it could not only move itself from place to place but haul a thresher also. These self-propelling outfits began to appear in the late '70's, A suitable gearing for the rear wheels had been devised and a belt drive from the engine flywheel to a covmter- shaft of this gearing provided the propelling power.
In 1880 a patent was issued for a steering gear. This was followed by the introduction of a clutch and a gear train between the engine and the rear driving wheels. It has been said that the first one hxmdred of these self-propelling steam engines were in use in 1880; hence that year is designated as the beginning of the period of steam power application to agriculture.
As the mamafacture of the steam tractor gradually fell into the hands of the thresher btiilder, so its use also was confined largely to the custom thresherman. More and more it became purely a belt power.