International Harvester Company, USA  

International Harvester Company, USA  

The American International Harvester Company was created in 1902 by the merger of five companies, namely the McCormick Harvesting Machinery Company, Marsh Harvester Company, Deering Harvester Company, and three less-known companies. All of these companies already had their own rich histories. For instance, Cyrus Hall Mc Cormick (1809–1884) had invented the mechanical reaper, twine binder, and bundle carrier, which made him famous worldwide. No less famous was the Marsch Harvester company, founded in 1861, which specialised in harvesters, while the Deering Harvester Company focused on efforts to produce a combustion engine ever since 1889. Its engines were first used as stationary and later fitted into various agricultural machines. From that, it was but a short step from the development of tractors.  

In 1900, E.A. Johnson had developed for McCormick a three-wheel reaper, which was in 1906 in collaboration with the Ohio Manufacturing Company introduced to the market. Two years later, the already consolidated International Harvester Company built its first tractor. By 1910, one-third of American fields were cultivated by Titans and smaller Moguls, both made by the IHC. The construction of both of these tractors was in many ways inspired by steam machines. Only after the First World War did Bert R. Benjamin construct the Farmall, a four-wheel tractor of a modern design.  

In 1913, the IHC split in two separate companies: the IHC of New Jersey and IH Corporation, which was in charge of international trade and the production of tractors and other machines. Five years later, the two companies were reunited. By that time, they already had 13 branches in the United States, Germany, France, and Sweden, and alongside machine production also operated steelworks and mines and were engaged in Cuban and Mexican agriculture. In 1918, the newly formed company started a serial production of IH Model 8-16 tractor, which was the first in the world to include in its standard equipment a belt and a drawbar. This had significantly expanded the versatility of tractors, which were selling in increasing numbers. By 1930, the company had produced 100,000 tractors. In 1942, the Farmall had been updated and sold as F12, and after further modifications since 1938 as F14.  

Other tractor factories of the IHC made during the interwar era tractors of the same design and equipment, but they were called McCormick–Deering in honour of the two founders of the company. The IHC managed to gain a foothold in Europe already in 1908, when it founded a daughter company in the German town of Neuss. This company initially just imported and sold IHC machines (with tractors making up just a small part of the total). In 1911, however, it started to make mowers, harrows, tedders, and the like in its own newly built factory. It established business representation in Berlin, Hamburg, and Wroclaw (then Breslau). After the First World War, the company rapidly regrouped and by 1923, it had about 2,000 employees.  

In 1936, the Neuss branch of IHC founded a tractor department and started to make in Europe both IHC tractors and transport tractors modelled after the McCormick–Deering models. Thanks to the existence of a German daughter company, American IHC tractors could continue to be made in Germany even after the Nazis came to power. The company had developed a new type of 15hp IHC tractor. Towards the end of the war, about 70% of the factory was destroyed. In 1947, the company managed to restart tractor production by making tractors from spare parts, but already in 1950, it introduced a new diesel Farmall DF 25 with a four-cylinder engine, which proved to be very popular. Three years later, the company developed a Farmall DED 3 with a three-cylinder engine, and in the following year it introduced models DLD 2 and DGD 4, thus covering the range of 14hp to 30hp. In 1955, the IHC presented a new series of tractors that included six models. At this point, tractor production was steadily growing while mowers and binders were gradually phased out. The company was employing about 4,000 people and it was one of the largest tractor producers in Germany. In 1962, it introduced a new series of tractors, which brought to the end the Farmall series in Germany: henceforth, IHC tractors were called simply McCormick. At this time, the company developed the D439 tractor with 39hp and in 1965 models 523 and 624 with comfort-increasing equipment.  

This was also a time when the image of IHC products had changed. In 1969, the IHC started to put together a tractor series called International-Star-Serie. One year later, IHC was already employing 100,000 people in 46 factories all around the world and clearly succeeded in maintaining its position on the market. In 1978, the IHC introduced its International 1455 tractor with 145hp, and in the 1980s it developed its XL series. In 1983, the American concern Teneco had entered the IHC: it integrated the sale of agricultural machines into its worldwide network. In 1986, the IHC, i.e., the International Harvester Company, had ceased to exist and the company adopted a new name, J.I. Case. Despite this development, the older name still appears in the names of its products, which bear the label Case–IH.  

Tedder

Attached to the tractor is a tedder, that is, an implement used for turning fodder crops. The first mentions of implements used for turning fodder come from Asia; they arrived in Europe through Greece. Initially, they were pulled by draught animals but as technology progressed, they came to be hitched to tractors. The construction of a tedder facilitates an effective turning of fodder crops. The machine has a frame of metal pipes; on both sides of the frame is a rotation turning mechanism formed of ten wires arranged in a fan.