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The landscape of American agriculture changed dramatically between 1850 and 1950, largely due to the introduction of agricultural tractors. Initially, tractors used steam engines, until they gave way to internal combustion engines in the 20th century. The steam engine tractor of the turn of the century is gigantic and primitive, using chains on a rotating shaft to steer.

When tractors were introduced, farmers quickly realized that engine driven tractors were more economical to use, as compared to keeping animals for tillage, and tractors began to sell widely. In many cases, agricultural machinery dealers received cattle for bartering tractors and, in turn, sold the cattle on the meat market. The Farmall is one of early tractors and most familiar and best-known tractors in the history of tractors. The tractors were made to be work horses, so niceties were minimal. This included foregoing a fuel gauge.

Tractors are most useful for cultivation purposes, so a tractor have been a must for farm owners, but tractors are also used in excavation, in manufacturing and industry, or on construction sites. Farm size, availability of labor and personalized services, crop selection, and farming practices, such as the choice of tillage system, all affect the selection of optimal package equipment and, ultimately, the number of tractors required for operation. Although the demand for tractor power generally increases with the size of the operation, many commercial operations operate efficiently with a single tractor.

The tractors are designed to operate at different travel speeds, but the final drives are not designed for all the theoretically available possible torques. The engine can vary from around 12 to 120 horsepower or more, and tractors over the years have generally been offered in the range of 20 to 400 horsepower. The engine power is transmitted to a gearbox generally having 4 to 10 speeds (these transmissions are manually switched via a control lever to determine the speed at which the tractor can go) and via the differential to the two large rear drive wheels. Some farm tractors can reach speeds of up to 25 miles per hour, but slow speeds are necessary to give the farmer more control when working in the field.

Agricultural tractors are designed to operate with additional weight or ballast when pulling heavy loads to reduce wheel slippage. Insufficient ballast can cause the wheels to slip excessively and increase fuel consumption. Tractors need large tires to avoid compressing the soil and to avoid digging. So only the rear tires really need to be large, and the front tires can be small and smooth unless the tractor has four-wheel drive.

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