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

              had been largely overcome and American tractor exports picked up to a normal level, amounting to over $12,000,000 in value, more than double those of 1922.

The interesting fact in this expanding production was Ford's share of the business. He built 101,898 tractors or 76 per cent of the total. The Harvester Company built 12,057 or 9 per cent—leaving all the other 73 manufacturers only 15 per cent of the total production. This was to be Ford's peak year. His proportion steadily declined thereafter, until he withdrew from the field entirely.

With G.M.C.'s withdrawal the year before. Ford remained as the only representative of the automobile industry that made such frantic efforts to get into the business during war days.
In connection with G.M.C. the Farm Implement News of March 29 carried this article:
"In its annual report for 1922, the General Motors Corp. for the first time makes reference to the liquidation of the Samson tractor business. The statement is made that the tractor divi¬ sion has been liquidated at a loss of more than |55,000,000 and that the greater part of the Janesville plant has been turned over to other uses. The following is an extract from the report:
'After the tractor v/as fully developed and priced at $650, it was found that it could not be marketed profitably. Prices v/ere raised only to discover that sales could not be made in competition with more.cheap¬ ly designed tractors. In the meantime commitments for materials had been entered into, with a view to produc¬ ing 70,000 tractors of this class; and, in addition, materials for producing 50,000 tractors of another class. This v/as the situation as it appeared December 1, 1920. The loss in liquidating inventories and commitments of this division amounted to §21,293,752, in addition to the operating losses of $11,946,292, mailing a total loss incurred of |35,240,044.

"The news that the General Motors Corp. would liquidate the Samson business was published in Farm Implement News of September 28, 1922."
Farm product prices shov/ed further declines and as a result the agitation against equipment prices became more wide-spread, leading in the fall of the year to an active campaign by the N.A.P.E.M. to en¬ lighten the farmer on the justice of the industry's pricing policies. The fii'st announcement in this campaign appeared in December.
In July the Government entered suit to reopen the case against the Harvester Company in v/hich a consent decree v/as put into effect in 1918.
October 1 Ford advanced his tractor price from $395 to $420.