Russ' Vintage Iron

OMAHA (DTN) -- Last month, I wrote about the legendary tractor innovator Harry Ferguson. (https://www.dtnpf.com/…) Ferguson changed agriculture by inventing the three-point system that nearly every tractor has used since.

I received an email a few days after the column was posted from a person had their own interesting Ferguson story.

Here is the email:

"Hello Russ! I saw your article on Harry Ferguson, but did you know that 2025 is the centenary of the modern tractor, thanks to the Ferguson Master Patent filed by Harry Ferguson in 1925 at Belfast, Northern Ireland?

"The year 2025 marks the centenary of the invention of the modern tractor by Harry Ferguson. On Feb. 12, 1925, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Harry Ferguson filed a patent titled 'Apparatus for Coupling Agricultural Implements to Tractors and Automatically Regulating the Depth of Work.'

"This document, now known as the Ferguson Master Patent, is the invention of the modern tractor on paper and points to the brilliance of the man who without doubt was a genius and today is rightfully recognized as the father of the modern tractor. The idea of a tractor and quickly interchangeable implements acting as a single unit may seem common sense now, but Mr. Ferguson was the first person in history to have that vision.

"Thanks to his 1925 Ferguson Master Patent, Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom can say it is the country that gifted the modern tractor to the world. This gift gave farmers the tools today to produce the food we need to live and prosper.

"I recently had my 1944 Ford-Ferguson out working on potatoes, and for a tractor at 81 years old it's amazing what this little grey Ford-Ferguson can still do. In fact, this tractor could still be doing a day's work long after I'm gone.

"The Ford-Ferguson finally put the ideas of Harry Ferguson's Master Patent into mass production thanks to the manufacturing might of Henry Ford and at a price even the poorest farmer could afford.

"Introduced in 1939 because of the Gentleman's Agreement between Henry Ford and Harry Ferguson, it was a ground-breaking tractor. Basically, every tractor today is based on technology pioneered by Harry Ferguson and his engineers in the mechanized farming solution that is the Ferguson System.

"As I was driving down the road on the tractor and listening to the singing of the little side valve Ford petrol engine (Harry Ferguson had full control in the design, development and sales of the tractor) a wave of emotion and pride came over me. Looking at the patchwork of green fields, plowed brown fields and the crops of yellow oilseed rape down the Derg Valley in the distance, a stunning part of Northern Ireland, I had this thought.

"None of what I see would be possible without Harry Ferguson. A vision perfected in this little grey tractor in a farming solution that any country would be so proud to say its peoples developed. A vision that has touched everyone's lives for the betterment of reducing hunger and poverty.

"That is why I have been campaigning for a Harry Ferguson Museum for almost 40 years to honor him. To help publicize the campaign in this centenary year, I have just launched a petition calling on the Minister for Communities in Northern Ireland to found and fund such a museum. The link to the petition is: https://chng.it/…

Many thanks,

Stevan Patterson, Castlederg, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland."

I really want to thank Stevan for taking the time to send me his interesting Ferguson story. It is obviously a very personal story for him and probably his home country of Northern Ireland.

When I wrote my column, I guess I didn't even realize that it was 100 years ago that Ferguson filed the patent for the Ferguson system or a three-point system. A century of the three-point system would have been a nice news peg on which I could have written that column.

Stevan's email all the way from Northern Ireland got me thinking if this was the first time I had gotten a letter or email from someone outside of North America.

I have been writing this column for more than 20 years now and I believe when I first began it, I got a letter from someone who read my column who lived and farmed in Australia. I don't remember what exactly the letter was about, but I did keep the envelope in my desk for many years with its Australian return address.

So Stevan's email was the second letter/email I have gotten from outside of North America. No envelope was involved this time, which is too bad.

Russ Quinn can be reached at Russ.Quinn@dtn.com

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