Garden Tractors for the Small Country Place

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Still smaller tractors in lawn and backyard-garden-scale became feasible when small but powerful (2.5 to 7hp), and low-priced one-cylinder, air-cooled engines were perfected by the Wisconsin-based engine makers Briggs & Stratton, TecumsehLauson and by plumbing-fixture maker Kohler among others. Small scale transmissions and differentials were developed by Peerless (sister company of Tecumseh), Eaton and others.

The riding-mower/lawn tractor evolved from two directions. Lawn mower-makers expanded their product lines upwards beginning with 5hp rear-engined riding mowers. A little behind-but not by much the established farm equipment manufacturers downsized their product lines as farms grew fewer and larger and the suburban consumer market expanded. Together the two industries evolved the modern 7 to 12hp lawn tractor and the larger 16 to 20+ horsepower garden tractor.

Multiple-cylinder air-cooled engines perfected by aircraft-engine maker Continental and generator maker Onan permitted even more-powerful garden tractors offering PTO or hydraulics-operated accessory equipment like front-end loaders, rear-mounted tillers, back-hoes and post-hole augers, log splitters and dozens more.

In recent decades, Japanese farm equipment manufacturers-preeminently, Kubota—have introduced small but powerful diesel-engine tractors. Sold under their own names and by John Deere and other domestic companies, these compact tractors offer big-tractor performance at a fraction of big-tractor price and in machines of a size to fit into a garage. They compensate for their comparative small size with the heavy diesel engine, wheel weights, and full-time 4wheel drive. The Japanese firms Honda and Kawasaki also make top-quality small engines and limited lines of lawn and garden equipment.

Survivors and Newcomers

I am happy to report that many small tractors still come in the distinctive colors that have set their farming forbears apart since the 1920s. John Deere produces the industry's most comprehensive line of consumer and professional-grade lawn and garden equipment-all painted lovely Deere Green with yellow lettering or (in commercial lines) vice versa. The fine old crimson International Harvester Farmall line evolved into the Cub Cadet, now unaccountably-painted cream. Farmall-red survives, however, in tractors made by Toro, Bolens, now a part of Troy-Bilt, maker of the famous red rear-tined tillers and others. JI Case Orange seems to have been appropriated by Kubota and others. Some Ford farm and industrial tractor dealers offer a line of Ford-Blue garden and lawn tractors made by old-time Harvester-maker New Holland(now owned by Fiat!?) though some models are made by-or for Jacobsen, which is part of Homelite, the chain saw maker, that is a division of Textron headquartered in Charlotte, NC. The Massey-Ferguson name survives on a half-dozen riding mowers, and Allis Chalmers has transmogrified into Agco-Allis Division of Simplicity MTD and others turn out machines under private brands with minor technical and cosmetic variations and in all colors of the rainbow for mall stores, Sears, Montgomery Ward and other major mass-merchandisers.

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