:''This article refers to the steam-powered agricultural tractor; for other types of steam tractor, see: Traction engine'' A steam tractor is a vehicle powered by a

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be ...

which is used for pulling. In

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

, the term ''steam tractor'' usually refers to a type of

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commo ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...

, the term ''steam tractor'' is more usually applied to the smallest models of traction engine - typically those weighing seven tons or less - used for hauling small loads on public roads. Although known as ''light steam tractors'', these engines are generally just smaller versions of the ' road locomotive'. This article concentrates on the steam-powered agricultural

vehicle A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), ...

s intended for the direct-pulling of ploughs and other implements (as opposed to cable-hauling).

Development (Great Britain)

Owing to differences in soil conditions, the development of

steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizatio ...

-powered agricultural machines differed considerably on either side of the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. In

, a number of traction engine builders attempted to produce a design of agricultural engine that could pull a

plough A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...

directly, in place of a team of horses. However, the heavier and wetter soils found in Britain meant that these designs were not successful — being less economical to use than the team of horses they were intended to replace. These engines were also known as "steam tractors". Instead, farmers resorted to cable-hauled ploughing using ploughing engines. A distinctive example of a British-designed (agricultural) steam tractor is the Garrett ''Suffolk Punch'', a 1917 design intended to compete directly with internal combustion-powered alternatives.

Development (North America)

The first steam tractors that were designed specifically for agricultural uses were

portable engine A portable engine is an engine, either a steam engine or an internal combustion engine, that sits in one place while operating (providing power to machinery), but (unlike a stationary engine) is portable and thus can be easily moved from one wor ...

s built on skids or on wheels and transported to the work area using horses. Later models used the power of the steam engine itself to power a drive train to move the machine and were first known as "

traction drive A traction motor is an electric motor used for propulsion of a vehicle, such as locomotives, electric or hydrogen vehicles, elevators or electric multiple unit. Traction motors are used in electrically powered rail vehicles ( electric multip ...

" engines which eventually was shortened to "tractor". These drive mechanisms were one of three types: chain, shaft, and open pinion. The open pinion became the most popular design due to its strength. Later improvements included power steering, differentials, compounded engines, and butt-strap boiler design. The steam engine was gradually phased out by the mid-1920s as the less expensive, lighter, and faster-starting internal combustion (kerosene, petrol or distillate) tractors fully emerged after World War I.

Uses

Threshing

These engines were used extensively in rural North America to aid in threshing, in which the owner/operator of a

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, thr ...

or ''threshing rig'' would travel from farmstead to farmstead threshing grain. Oats were a common item to be threshed, but wheat and other grains were common as well. On a "threshing day", all the neighbors would gather at that day's farmstead to complete a massive job in one day through cooperation. The women and older girls were in charge of cooking the noon meal and bringing water to the men. The children had various jobs based upon their age and sex. These jobs included driving the bundle racks, pitching bundles into the threshing machine, supplying water for the steam engine, hauling away the freshly threshed grain and scooping it into the granary. Steam traction engines were often too expensive for a single farmer to purchase, so "threshing rings" were often formed. In a threshing ring, multiple farmers pooled their resources to purchase a steam engine. They also chose one person among them to go to a steam school, to learn how to run the engine properly. There were also threshing contractors, who owned their own engine and thresher, and went to different farms, hiring themselves out to thresh grain.

Ploughing

The immense pulling power of steam tractors allowed them to be used for ploughing as well. Certain steam tractors were better suited for ploughing than others, with the large Minneapolis Threshing Machine Co., J.I. Case, Reeves & Co., and

Advance-Rumely The Advance-Rumely Company of La Porte, Indiana was an American pioneering producer of many types of agricultural machinery, most notably threshing machines and large tractors. Started in 1853 manufacturing threshers and later moved on to steam e ...

engines being prime examples. Some of the largest steam tractors, such as the Case (known as "Road Locomotives"), were capable of pulling 30 or more plough bottoms, while most were powerful enough to pull between 6 and 20. Differing soil conditions highly affected the ploughing abilities of these tractors.

Manufacturers

:''See: List of traction engine and steam tractor manufacturers''

Festivals and museums

;List *

List of steam fairs A steam fair or (steam rally) is a regular organised gathering of historic steam-powered vehicles and machinery, open to the public. Typical exhibits include: traction engines, steam rollers, steam wagons, and steam cars. Often, the scope is wide ...

– ''where preserved steam tractors may be seen in action'' ;Museums *A Hundred Years of Progress, Carthage, N

*

Hesston Steam Museum Hesston Steam Museum is an outdoor museum operated by the Laporte County Historical Steam Society in Hesston, Indiana. The museum occupies 155 acres and is the home of four different gauge railroads along with numerous other pieces of steam pow ...

(La Porte, Indiana

*

Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum The Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum (AGSEM) is a living-history museum founded in 1969 located on of county-owned land on the outskirts of Vista, California. The museum is a non-profit 501c(3) organization. It is located at 2040 N Santa Fe A ...

(Vista, California) *

Antique Powerland Powerland Heritage Park, formerly known as Antique Powerland, is a collection of museums and a self-described heritage site for power equipment, such as farm machinery, commercial trucks, trains, construction equipment, and the engines which power ...

(Brooks, Oregon, USA) * Fort Edmonton Park (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
Heidrick Ag History Center
(Woodland, California) * Heritage Museum on the

Old Thresher's Reunion The Midwest Old Threshers Reunion is an annual event that takes place in the small town of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, United States, and runs for five days, ending on the Labor Day weekend. It was first held in 1950, and has taken place every year exce ...

grounds (Mt. Pleasant, Iowa) * National Agricultural Museum (Szreniawa, Poland

* Country Heritage Park, Ontario Agricultural Museum (Ontario, Canada) * Manitoba Agricultural Museum (Austin, Manitoba, Canada

*Upper Peninsula Steam and Gas Engine Association Museum (Escanaba, Michigan

References

External links

Steam Tractors: Part 1

— ''three-part account of Steam Tractors at work, by Mike Rooth ''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Steam Tractor * Agricultural machinery History of agriculture

Tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commo ...