Farm Tractors. Michael Williams
with Froelich as the president, and, rather unusually, the Van Duzen engine from his first tractor was removed and used to power the new factory. Four new tractors were built, all based on his original design, but with a number of improvements, including steel instead of wood for the main frame.
Two of the Waterloo tractors were sold, but both were returned by their new owners because of mechanical problems. This was a serious setback for the company, and it decided to concentrate on making stationary engines instead of tractors. The engines, designed initially by Froelich, were a success; in 1895, the company name was changed to the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Co., omitting the word “Traction”. At about the same time, Froelich left the company to begin a new career elsewhere.
This was not an auspicious start; however, in spite of the setbacks and John Froelich’s departure from the company, his first tractor was a highly significant development. It was probably the first tractor to be equipped with reverse as well as forward gears, and this must have been a big advantage when positioning the tractor correctly to power the belt drive to a thresher.
Another reason why John Froelich’s tractor is so important is that it was the original forerunner of the modern John Deere tractor range. Waterloo expanded to become one of the leading stationary engine manufacturers, but they later returned to tractor production with the Waterloo Boy range, available in various versions from 1912. When Deere and Co. decided to buy its way into the tractor market in 1918, the manufacturer it chose to take over at a cost of £2,350,000 ($3,760,000) was the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Co.
Waterloo boy
A sales leaflet for the Waterloo company’s new tractors made it clear they were competing for sales against “the old-fashioned, cumbersome and complicated steam traction engine.” The leaflet included a list of 19 advantages over its rival, and these were reproduced in volume II of the Two-Cylinder Collector Series published by the Two-Cylinder Club. The claimed advantages were:
1. No possibility of explosion.
2. No possible danger of fire.
3. No tank man and team necessary.
4. A high-priced engineer is unnecessary.
5. No early firing to get up steam.
6. No leaky flues.
7. No boiler repairs of any kind.
8. No boiler cleaning and breaking of handhole bolts.
9. No broken bridges on account of weight.
10. No waiting for steam.
11. No waiting for water.
12. No running into holes or other obstructions, because the operatorstands in front and has full view of the road before him.
13. No time lost making long moves to take on fuel and water.
14. No time lost in turning the engine after the separator is uncoupledand left between the stacks.
15. No consumption of fuel before starting or after stopping.
16. No exact lining with separator necessary.
17. No runaway teams on account of “steam blowing off.”
18. No long belt to contend with.
19. No stopping of the engine when changing from separator to traction.
The Beginnings of John Deere
The Waterloo Boy tractors that took Deere into the market were the R and N models. The Model R was introduced in 1915, with production continuing until 1919, and the Model N was available from 1917 until 1924. This means both Waterloo Boy models were the first tractors to be sold by Deere, even though they never carried the John Deere name. They also introduced Deere to the twin-cylinder horizontal engine layout that remained a successful feature of almost every John Deere production tractor for more than 40 years.
Although at first glance the R and N models look similar, sharing as they do the same layout of engine, transmission and cooling system mounted as individual units on a steel girder frame, there were important differences. Design changes introduced on the Model N included a two-speed transmission instead of the single-speed version found on the Model R. Also, while the big ring gears on the driving wheels of the Model N are almost the same diameter as the wheel itself, on the Model R version, these are little more than half the diameter of the wheel. The Model N radiator is mounted on the left-hand side of the frame, viewed from the driver’s seat, but on most Model Rs it is on the right-hand side. The steering system is a less reliable indicator, as chain-link steering was fitted to all Model R tractors and to Model Ns built before about 1920, but this was replaced by more accurate worm and sector steering from 1920 onwards.
As well as being the first John Deere tractors, the Waterloo Boys possessed other claims to fame. One of the distributors for tractors exported to Britain, where they were sold under the Overtime brand name, was Harry Ferguson—the Overtime almost certainly triggered the early development of the Ferguson System of implement attachment and control (see “Designed for Performance”). In 1920, the Model N Waterloo Boy also became the first tractor to complete a Nebraska test. The results confirmed the 12-25 HP rating at a sedate 750 rpm.
Left: The final drive on the Model R was based on ring gears that were fully exposed to dust and mud, and wear must have been a problem on abrasive or stony soils. The ring gears on the Model R were smaller than those on the Model N, being little more than half the tractor’s rear-wheel diameter. Right: Fuel system detail on the twin-cylinder engine of a 1918 Model R. The Waterloo Boy engine had established a reputation for reliability and pulling power, and it was also mechanically simple and offered better servicing access than many of its more complicated rivals.
Huber Enters the Market
The Van Duzen company, manufacturer of the engine for John Froelich’s first tractor, designed and patented a tractor of its own in 1898. It was, of course, powered by one of its own single-cylinder vertical gasoline engines and, like the Froelich tractor, it featured a gravity feed to deliver gasoline from a holding tank high above the engine. Later in the same year, the Huber Manufacturing Co. based in Marion, Ohio, made a successful takeover bid for Van Duzen and its engine and tractor interests. This brought Huber into the tractor market for the first time, and it is reported to have built a batch of 30 tractors based on the Van Duzen design. If this figure is correct, it probably makes Huber the world’s biggest tractor manufacturer in the period before 1900.
Stopping Power
The priority in the early years of tractor development was reliability, and easy starting was much more important than stopping power.
Brakes were a rarity, and even the Model F Fordson started its production life in 1917 without brakes. At a time when driver safety was a low priority, lack of brakes does not appear to have concerned customers, operators or tractor manufacturers.
An exception was the first Ransomes tractor built in 1903 and featuring two braking systems. One was operated by a foot pedal that disengaged the clutch and then applied a brake to the transmission shaft, and the other was controlled by a hand lever to operate brakes on the rear wheels.
Later, when tractor speeds increased, transmission brakes became standard, operating on the rear wheels only. Since the 1980s some tractors have been equipped with brakes on all four wheels, and the pioneers of this trend include Same, Landini and the JCB high-speed tractor.
Huber was already a leading manufacturer of farm implements and steam traction engines, and, having completed their initial production batch of tractors, they pulled out of the market for more than 10 years to concentrate on other products. They began making tractors again in about 1911, starting with the Farmer’s Tractor, powered by a two-cylinder horizontally opposed