Cockeyed Youngster

Three and a quarter million U. S. farms consist of less than 70 acres and on most such farms horses are the only tractors Year and a half ago Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co. invaded this market with a cheap light tractor. Last year Deere & Co followed; month ago Motormaker Henry Ford. No jitney tractor, however, was announced by the giant (29 1/2%) of the power implement industry; tough, sprawling International Harvester Co.

Last week the giant labored and produced Farmall-A, a $515/- tractor. Its points:

>> Farmall is lopsided, with its engine crowded over to its left front wheel, its seat close to its right rear wheel so that the driver can look down directly on the ground he is working.

>> Four speeds forward give it a top speed of 10 m.p.h., make it useful for road building.

>> It weighs 1,700 pounds (less than the flywheel of the early Harvester tractors); its four-cylinder engine will pull a 16-inch plow bottom or a one-row middle buster (for furrowing cotton and cornfields).

>> At full load it will operate on one gallon of fuel per hour, is designed to replace one team of horses, will plow, disk harrow, cultivate, plant, haul or act as a small power plant.

>> Its offset motor gives greater traction to its left rear wheel which rolls on the unplowed land, not on the softer earth already plowed.

Promising deliveries in several weeks, International announced that it was producing 75 of the new tractors daily, could step up production to 200 a day.

/-Major competitors' prices: Allis-Chalmers and Deere, $495; Ford, $585.

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