The steam tractor is a tractor based on the steam engine and was used extensively in the late 1800s and early 1900s in agriculture. The first steam tractors that were designed specifically for agricultural uses were 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" 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.

Famous manufacturers include Advance-Rumely, Woods Brothers, Baker, Peerless, Frick, Aultman-Taylor, Geiser, Minneapolis, Gaar-Scott, and J.I. Case.

These engines were used extensively in rural North America to aid in oats threshing, in which the owner/operator of a threshing machine or threshing rig would travel from farmstead to farmstead threshing oats. The oats crop was the most important crop on the farm because the oats provided food for the horses which facilitated almost all of the hard work on a farm and provided straw as bedding for the livestock. On "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 oats and scooping it into the grainery.

The steam engine was gradually phased out by the mid-1920s as the less expensive, lighter, and faster-starting gas tractors that fully emerged after World War I.

Festivals and museums

• Fort Edmonton (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
• Ontario Agricultural Museum (Ontario, Canada)
• Steam Era (Milton, Ontario, Canada)
• Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion (Rollag, Minnesota, USA)

See also

• Live steam
• Traction engine

External links

• Thomas Mashburn Steam Tractor Parade DVD
• Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion
• Video-Victorian Steam Engine/Thresher in action

Transportation | Road transport | Vehicles | Tractors | Tricycle

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