In 1906 Leon Claeys, a Belgian mechanic, started to build
threshing machine
A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of farm equipment that threshes grain, that is, it removes the seeds from the stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out.
Before such machines were developed, thre ...
s.
[New Holland official site http://agriculture.newholland.com/uk/en/WNH/whoweare/Pages/alonghistory.aspx] In 1909 he built his factory in
Zedelgem
Zedelgem (; vls, Zillegem) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the villages of Aartrijke, Loppem, Veldegem and Zedelgem proper. On January 1, 2019, Zedelgem had a total population of 22,8 ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, to manufacture harvesting machines.
[CARROLL J.: The world encyclopedia of tractors and farm machinery, 1999 LORENZ BOOKS, p.109]
In 1952 Claeys produced the first European self-propelled
combine harvester
The modern combine harvester, or simply combine, is a versatile machine designed to efficiently harvest a variety of grain crops. The name derives from its combining four separate harvesting operations—reaping, threshing, gathering, and winnow ...
and by the 1960s, Claeys was one of the biggest combine manufacturers in Europe;
in 1964 the majority of Claeys was acquired by Sperry New Holland. In 1967 the company changed its name to Clayson, and in 1986 it merged with Ford.
In 1991 Ford was acquired by Fiatagri and became
New Holland.
References
New Holland Agriculture
External links
{{Commons category-inline, Clayson combine harvesters
Companies based in West Flanders