Chapter 320: The Machine That Challenged the Horses Part 1

Ernest Teucher looked up from his notebook. "Furrows."

"What?"

"They’re called furrows."

Hollen stared at him, exhausted and muddy. "I know what they’re called, Ernest."

"Then why call them holes?"

"Because the bloody thing spent half the afternoon burying itself in one!"

Across the table, Arthur Pendelton burst out laughing.

Ernest gave a small sigh and tapped his pencil. "It was a traction issue."

"It was a stuck-in-the-mud issue."

"Technically speaking—"

"Don’t you dare start with ’technically,’" Hollen warned.

Arthur leaned back, clearly having a great time. "I have to say, this whole farming venture is turning out to be quite entertaining."

Ernest glanced at him. "You haven’t even looked at the test results yet."

"I’ve seen the bills," Arthur said dryly. "That’s plenty."

"Those are two completely different things."

"Not from my chair, they aren’t."

Hollen dropped a thick folder onto the table with a heavy thud. Inside were the raw field notes from the Fieldmaster’s first real trials: engine heat, wheel slip, plowing drag, fuel burn, and several blunt comments from the farmers who had stood around watching.

Ernest pulled the folder closer. "All right. Let’s figure out why our tractor thinks it’s a shovel."

To be fair, the machine had done something remarkable. It had actually dragged a two-blade plow through real farm soil—not across the smooth gravel of the factory yard, but through the heavy, stubborn dirt a farmer’s livelihood depended on.

Still, the flaws were impossible to ignore.

Hollen walked up to the chalkboard and picked up a piece of chalk. "Problem one: wheel slip."

He wrote:

Light soil — fine

Damp soil — unpredictable

Heavy clay — completely hopeless

"The engine has plenty of muscle," Hollen said, turning around. "The problem is the wheels can’t put that power into the dirt."

Ernest nodded. "How bad was it?"

The test engineer opened his logbook. "On the good runs, about fifteen percent slip. On the run where it got stuck? Over forty percent before the driver cut the clutch."

Arthur frowned. "Forty percent of what?"

"Think of it this way," Ernest said. "The drive wheels turned enough times to travel ten yards, but the tractor only moved six."

Arthur winced. "So we’re burning expensive petrol just to fling dirt into the air."

"Exactly," Hollen said.

"See? I understand engineering just fine."

"Congratulations, Arthur."

Ernest pulled over the blueprints for the wheels. The Fieldmaster used large, heavy steel rear wheels fitted with thick iron cleats to bite into the earth. It was a sturdy setup that their existing shop could stamp out quickly.

The trouble was the spacing. The cleats were set too close together. In wet ground, damp clay simply packed into the gaps, turning the cleated wheel into a smooth, slick ball of mud. Once that happened, the tractor sat there spinning like a pig in a wallow.

Ernest sketched a quick revision on the corner of the paper. "What if we widen the gap between the cleats?"

"Angle them, too," Hollen suggested. "Give them an open V-shape so the mud slides out on its own as the wheel rolls."

"Self-cleaning," Ernest agreed.

Other engineers chimed in. One wanted taller wheels; another wanted wider steel rims; a third wanted to pile permanent dead weight over the rear axle.

Ernest held up a hand. "Let’s take it one step at a time. Change the cleat spacing first."

"Sensible," Hollen said.

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "You mean you aren’t tearing the whole tractor apart and starting over?"

"Not today," Ernest replied.

"Miracles do happen."

Next came the balance. The heavy engine sat near the front, which was great for keeping the steering wheels planted on the road. But without enough weight on the rear drive wheels, the tires couldn’t grip. Put too much weight back there, however, and the machine would sink like a stone or pack the farmer’s soil as hard as a brick road.

"We could slide the whole engine backward," Hollen said.

"That means redesigning the gearbox," Ernest countered. "And the steering links. What if we just use removable ballast?"

Hollen stopped, then broke into a grin. "Bolt-on iron weights?"

"Exactly. Mount them directly to the rear wheels when the ground is tough, and take them off when it isn’t. Let the farmer adjust the weight to fit his field."

Arthur tapped the table. "And how much do these iron slabs cost?"

"Arthur," Hollen groaned.

"It’s my job to ask!"

"And it’s a fair question," Ernest laughed. "We’ll price them out."

The third problem, however, wiped the smiles off their faces: the tow hitch.

During the trial, the plow had been hooked up a little too high on the frame. When the plow dug deep into stubborn dirt, the tractor didn’t just pull forward—the pulling force tried to lever the front end right off the ground.

Ernest studied the load figures, his expression hardening. "We need a hard limit on hitch height. Low on the chassis, tied directly into the heavy frame, never the axle housing."

An engineer blinked. "A higher hitch gives you better downforce on the rear wheels, doesn’t it?"

"It does," Ernest said quietly. "Right up until the plow catches a rock, the front wheels lift off the dirt, and the whole five-ton tractor flips backward over its own axle."

The room went dead silent.

Hollen folded his arms. "And the driver ends up under the engine."

Arthur looked horrified. "Good God."

"This isn’t a touring car," Ernest said. "A tractor has open gears, heavy belts, and enormous torque. If it rolls, or catches a man’s sleeve, it won’t give him a second chance. We build the safety guards right now, not after someone gets hurt."

By late afternoon, the checklist was set: wider cleat spacing, removable wheel weights, a lowered hitch, a smoother clutch pedal, and proper metal guards over the exposed drive belts.

"How long will the changes take?" Arthur asked.

"Two or three weeks," Hollen said.

"And the cost?"

"A lot less than building a second prototype from scratch."

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose. "That is not an actual number, Hollen."

Ernest smiled, packing up his notes. "We’ll send you the paperwork tomorrow."