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Monday, September 7, 2009

Abandoned....in the field


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Taken from Yesterday's Tractor Co.
"Harry Ferguson, born in 1884, started experimenting with tractors and plows in his early years. Harry is an important person in tractor history, being the inventor of the 3-point hitch. It was dubbed the "Ferguson System". After meeting with Henry Ford in 1938, over a handshake it was agreed that the 3-point hitch system would be installed on the Ford tractors being produced at that time (Ford 9N from 1939-1942 and the 2N from 1942-1947). These tractors had the "Ferguson System" insignia on them and Harry Ferguson received a share of the profits.
In 1947 Henry Ford's Grandson officially terminated this "handshake agreement". The Ford 8N tractors that were being produced around this time no longer carried the "Ferguson System" insignia. Ferguson sued the Ford Motor Co. and eventually won a settlement.
In what some say is retaliation, Harry Ferguson began producing his own line of tractors, beginning with the TO-20 in 1948. These tractors looked surprisingly similar to the Ford 9N and 2N and sported the 3-point hitch."

I suppose, in a way, Harry Ferguson was abandoned by Ford Motor Company, just as this Ferguson tractor sits abandoned in the field it once plowed.

20 comments:

  1. o love old farm machinery abandoned in fields, left to rust and weather in such marvelous ways! your photo is just wonderful!

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  2. I love this photo, we had one similar to it on the farm where I grew up. It is just beautiful. loved it.

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  3. Cool photo. Isn't is amazing how many colors there are in rust -- not just reds and oranges, but blues and greens, if you look? Love this!

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  4. I have a love for old tractors, trucks and cars. This is great! Neat history to go along with it too!

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  5. beautiful shot - love the rusty details and i wonder how it came to be abandoned there.

    thank you for the details about the handshake agreement - i never knew that story at all.

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  6. I love old farm equipment too....and this is a beauty !!!

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  7. Wonderful photo...loved the history lesson too!

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  8. I've often wondered about abandoned farm equipment left to rust in fields.

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  9. the photo is so striking with the greens and the distance surrounding the tractor

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  10. Very cool photo and love all the info you gathered.

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  11. Thanks, all! The tractor sits on 11 acres that is for sale on the road where we walk. There's also an old corn crib and windmill, but the house is gone. I originally planned to post pictures of the windmill, but the lighting was all wrong, but it did make a nice silhouette in the evening sky.

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  12. Fabulous photo!!
    Love the tractor ~~

    Laura

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  13. really cool post! thanks for the history along with the photo!

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  14. LOVE this! I was hoping to catch an old abandoned tractor, but couldn't find one anywhere. It's amazing, the character they have.

    Really great shot.

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  15. Laura, Dani, and Sandra, thank you all! I think this challenge is going to get better and better as we go along. I'm so excited to be here with everyone!

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  16. What a great photo Susan!...Love the rust and your info on Ferguson...Old farmland always does seem to have lots of abandoned things on them...like old farms being abandoned...

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  17. Any little boy would love this photo and even better to use it as his climbing frame/play prop.
    Such a great photo.

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  18. Oliag, I didn't know about the Ferguson tractors. I had only ever heard of Massey-Ferguson, so this was really interesting to me. I can't wait to show it to my FIL.

    simply blogged, yes, I agree with the Ford comment...and my husband just bought a Ford truck!

    we blog artists, I know! My boys would have played all day on one of these! Probably wearing their army gear and pretending it was a tank!

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  19. It's just quietly blending into the landscape, becoming part of history and nature. Beautiful.

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