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The “Hunger Fighter”
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Article
by Ivan Glick
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Times were bleak in 1917 England. There was war, and the country
was running out of food. For nearly a century England had depended
on low-cost food from her colonies and the Americas. Much of
the English countryside was in grass for sheep, not food crops
for people. Now it was being drained of both men and horses
for the army in France and Belgium.
To make the situation even worse, ships carrying food to the
island nation were being sunk by U-boats, with a loss of one-half
million tons of freight a month. England would have to grow
its own food, and quickly, or risk starvation of its people.
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Used with permission, from the book “World
War I Posters” by Gary A. Borkan, Schiffer Publishing,
Ltd.
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The British Ministry of Munitions (MOM) decided farm
mechanization in the form of tractors was the only way to do it. But
England had few tractors, and no plant could produce the thousands
of tractors needed almost immediately, before the next growing season.
Domestic factories were already being pushed beyond their limits with
war work.
6,000 Tractors Ordered
The Prime Minister sent Lord Northcliffe, chairman of
the British War Mission, to the United States to find tractors. It
was the same year Henry Ford had formed a private company to produce
a small, light-weight farm tractor he had been working on. He had
not yet started full production of his Fordson tractor, but he agreed
to deliver 6,000 units to English farms as soon as possible (some
records put the number at 7,000).
That year Henry Ford put the world’s first mass-production
tractor assembly line into action, at times producing as many as seven
units an hour. The 6,000 promised tractors were delivered to England
by May of 1918.
At 2,500 pounds, the Fordson was half the weight of
other tractors in its day and cost much less to build. It was powered
by a four cylinder, 20 h.p. engine that started on gasoline but ran
on kerosene. It had no frame because the engine block was heavy enough
to support the entire tractor.
Russian Famine
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A 1917 experimental Fordson owned by Duane Helman.
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A famine devastated Russia in 1921. Stalin used
the opportunity to starve the peasants onto state-owned collective
farms. Farmers killed and ate what draft horses the Bolsheviks
had not stolen. Next they ate the precious seed they were saving
to plant for the next year’s crop.
Normally prosperous German and Dutch Mennonite
farmers in the Ukraine bread-basket region were also starving.
They had been invited there by Catherine the Great to boost
agricultural development. Following the Russian Revolution that
brought the Communists to power, they had suddenly become hated
“Kulaks” targeted for liquidation.
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They wrote and explained their plight to Mennonites
who had emigrated to America at the same time they had moved to Russia.
Food was quickly sent for large-scale public feeding kitchens. But
it wasn’t enough. Local land needed to be put back into production.
The Americans went into action again, and in 1922 a
ship with 25 Fordson tractors and an equal number of Oliver plows
left New York and sailed to Russia with a group of young American
driver-mechanics.
Tractors With Lights
More than 5,000 acres of land were plowed for wheat
and rye by that fall. A cable went back to the U.S. requesting another
shipment of 25 tractors and plows, only this time they asked for lights
on the tractors, if possible, so they could run them 24 hours a day.
Again, the tractors were sent, crops were grown, and lives were saved.
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Back in America, an end-of-war recession cut tractor
sales dramatically. The Fordson’s price went from $790
per unit to $625 just to keep them moving onto farms. But the
lower price wasn’t sufficient, so in 1922 the price was
slashed to $395. When told the company was losing $50 on every
one sold, Henry Ford replied, “That is the best news I
have heard in a long while. I have wanted to do something for
the farmers in this country.”
A Fordson, new and perfectly tuned, was easy enough
to start. It was the first tractor most farmers ever had and
their first experience with anything more complicated than a
horse-drawn mower or grain binder. Many of the Fordsons developed
starting problems after the engine valves had begun to burn
and were in need of regrinding. Even a robust farmer could wear
himself out cranking the beast.
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The author’s late father, Aaron Glick, right
and his brother, Jacob, demonstrate the convenience of
the Fordson’s fender toolbox.
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It was common to let the engine idle over lunch time
just to save the frustration of trying to restart it. It was even
worse in cold weather. Some farmers would remove the spark plugs and
insert a few drops of ether into each cylinder with an eye-dropper.
Then, with the plugs replaced, the engine would usually be running
after the first crank.
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An early ad for converting a car into a tractor.
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A Fire Under Them
Homesteaders in Montana who needed their tractor
in the dead of winter took another tack. A pan of burning coals
from a wood fire would be placed under the crankcase. A canvas
cover over the hood to the ground held the heat in. Before too
long the frozen oil would liquefy again and the engine block
would be warm enough for the thing to start.
The next step was to quickly fill the radiator
with hot water because almost nobody used antifreeze, and engines
were always drained in cold weather. It was the last thing you
did when you turned the tractor off for the day.
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For 22 years Fordson tractors dominated the world market
with 826,779 made. It appeared in a time of war, famine, and economic
depression. No one can argue that because of this small tractor, millions
of suffering people around the world had food to eat during one of
history’s darkest times. Some will remember if fondly as...the
hunger fighter.
