New Field Plowed

Young Henry Ford gave a big business lunch last week. The lunch was alfresco, at his onetime summer home at Deer Lake Farms, near Detroit. Under tents, Young Henry and 300 guests quaffed beer and cocktails, munched cold meats and salad, buffet-style, then watched a new Ford tractor plow the hard clay of the field outside. Said Young Henry, introducing his latest product: "Since the days of my grandfather ... we have always had one foot in the soil, and one foot in industry. We will continue that policy."

The foot which Young Henry put in the soil last week also came down hard on the neck of an angular Irish inventor named Harry Ferguson. In 1939, Ferguson, who had perfected a hydraulic lift device to keep tractors from turning over when the plow hit obstructions, became old Henry Ford's "only partner." Ford had stopped making his Fordson tractor in the '20s when it lost money. But for Ferguson, Ford made 306,181 tractors, this time with the Ferguson lift. They were sold exclusively by Ferguson, Inc., which relied heavily on Ford dealers.

Straighten a Muddle. When Ernest R. Breech became the executive vice president of Ford in 1946--and began straightening out its muddled accounting system --he looked hard at the tractor deal. The tractors, said he, were costing Ford more to make than Ferguson paid for them. So Breech ended the contract, as of June 30. Ernie Breech also had a personal interest in tractors. Henry II had lured high-priced men like Breech into the company by giving them stock in a new farm-equipment company, the Dearborn Motors Corp. Thus the personal fortunes of the top Ford officials depended on Ford's ability to make and sell a tractor of its own. Cut off by Ford, Harry Ferguson had managed to set up a manufacturing arrangement in England with Standard Motor Co. But in the U.S. he had no such luck. After shopping around, Roger Kyes, president of Ferguson, Inc., bought a surplus war plant in Cleveland and talked of floating $8,000,000 in stock and making Ferguson tractors.

Start a Squabble? Last week the stock was still unfloated, the plant still idle. Worse, many of his dealers had deserted to Dearborn Motors. They would find their new product, retailing at $1,095 f.o.b. Detroit, familiar. At the party on Dearborn Motors' experimental farm -- purchased last year from Henry II--those who saw the new tractor thought it looked so much like the Ford-Ferguson machine that many predicted a patent squabble.

But neither Young Henry nor Dearborn's President Frank Pierce seemed worried. Said Pierce: "We are geared to produce 100,000 tractors a year."

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