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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 grain and scooping it into the granary. Steam traction engines were often too expensive for a single farmer to purchase, so "threshing rings" were often formed. In a threshing ring, multiple farmers pooled their resources to purchase a steam engine. They also chose one person among them to go to a steam school, to learn how to run the engine properly. There were also threshing contractors, who owned their own engine and thresher, and went to different farms, hiring themselves out to thresh grain.
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would travel from farmstead to farmstead threshing grain. Oats were a common item to be threshed, but wheat and other grains were common as well. On a "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
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engines being prime examples. Some of the largest steam tractors, such as the 150 horsepower (110 kW) Case (known as "Road
Locomotives"), were capable of pulling 30 or more plow bottoms, while most were powerful enough to pull between 6 and 20. Differing soil conditions highly affected the
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directly, in place of a team of horses. However, the heavier and wetter soils found in
Britain meant that these designs were not successful, being less economical to use than the teams of horses they were intended to replace. These engines were also known as "steam tractors". Instead, farmers
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The steam engine was gradually phased out by the mid-1920s as the less expensive, lighter, and faster-starting internal combustion (kerosene, petrol or distillate) tractors fully emerged after World War I.
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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 "
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The immense pulling power of steam tractors allowed them to be used for plowing as well. Certain steam tractors were better suited for plowing than others, with the large
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These engines were used extensively in rural North
America to aid in threshing, in which the owner/operator of a
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This article is about the steam-powered agricultural tractor. For other types of steam tractor, see
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intended for the direct-pulling of plows and other implements (as opposed to cable-hauling).
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powered by a steam engine, used extensively in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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The first steam tractors that were designed specifically for agricultural uses were
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A distinctive example of a
British-designed (agricultural) steam tractor is the
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Upper
Peninsula Steam and Gas Engine Association Museum (Escanaba, Michigan)
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558:"Collectors at Great Oregon Steam-Up are always steamed about their passion"
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three-part account of Steam
Tractors at work, by Mike Rooth
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Owing to differences in soil conditions, the development of
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This article concentrates on the steam-powered agricultural
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resorted to cable-hauled plowing using plowing engines.
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List of traction engine and steam tractor manufacturers
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where preserved steam tractors may be seen in action
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436:National Agricultural Museum (Szreniawa, Poland)
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460:Rough and Tumble (Kinzers, Pennsylvania, USA)
302:The drive belt: used to transfer power from a
58:introducing citations to additional sources
392:A Hundred Years of Progress, Carthage, NC
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48:Relevant discussion may be found on the
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556:Brettman, Allan (July 24, 2010).
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16:Vehicle powered by a steam engine
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265:steam tractor (manufactured in
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479:History of steam road vehicles
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535:. Crowood Press. p. 37.
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448:Manitoba Agricultural Museum
433:grounds (Mt. Pleasant, Iowa)
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159:usually refers to a type of
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450:(Austin, Manitoba, Canada)
442:Ontario Agricultural Museum
420:(Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
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424:Heidrick Ag History Center
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144:is a tractor powered by a
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531:Ranieri, Malcolm (2005).
249:-powered alternatives.
429:Heritage Museum on the
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625:History of agriculture
620:Agricultural machinery
587:Steam Tractors: Part 1
431:Old Thresher's Reunion
426:(Woodland, California)
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533:Traction Engine Album
414:(Brooks, Oregon, USA)
366:Festivals and museums
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133:Steam Tractor at the
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398:Hesston Steam Museum
183:light steam tractors
54:improve this article
630:Steam road vehicles
408:(Vista, California)
377:List of steam fairs
247:internal combustion
418:Fort Edmonton Park
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110:November 2010
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504:Steam wagon
494:Steamroller
200:Development
173:, the term
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609:Categories
569:2010-08-08
542:1861267940
518:References
484:Live steam
267:California
80:newspapers
489:Steam car
336:J.I. Case
294:Threshing
50:talk page
615:Tractors
593:, &
467:See also
216:Atlantic
194:vehicles
387:Museums
326:Plowing
261:A 1905
240:Garrett
164:tractor
94:scholar
595:Part 3
591:Part 2
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101:JSTOR
87:books
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371:List
289:Uses
263:Best
232:plow
73:news
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