Chapter 322: Taming the Field Part 1

The first Fieldmaster broke down after just eleven days.

The second developed a stubborn cooling problem. The third was running without a hitch. The fourth gave its driver such a scare that he refused to climb back onto it. The fifth sat parked in a barn waiting for dry weather.

And the sixth had triggered an all-out argument between twelve farmers, two village elders, and one very frustrated contractor.

Arthur Pendelton stared at the six reports spread across his desk, then looked over his spectacles at Ernest Teucher.

"Congratulations," Arthur said flatly.

Ernest raised an eyebrow. "What for?"

"You brought the industrial revolution to the countryside."

From across the office, Hollen Vane let out a quiet chuckle.

"And apparently," Arthur added, tapping the papers, "the countryside is fighting back."

Ernest picked up the top sheet. "What happened to the first tractor out west?"

"Gearbox bearing gave up."

"And the second?"

"Radiator choked with dust and chaff. It boiled over."

"What about the fourth?"

Arthur’s face tightened. "The driver tried hauling a loaded wagon up a steep dirt bank. The front wheels came clean off the ground. He hit the clutch and the machine slammed back down before it flipped, but he swore he’d never touch the iron beast again."

Hollen stopped laughing. "That could have killed him."

"Very easily," Ernest said, setting the paper down. "And the sixth?"

"A shared cooperative," Arthur sighed. "They can’t agree on whose field gets plowed first. Everyone thinks their wheat is more important than their neighbor’s."

Ernest leaned back in his chair. He was quiet for a long moment, then smiled faintly.

"Well," Ernest murmured.

"Well?" Arthur echoed, narrowing his eyes.

"We wanted real field data," Ernest said. "Now we have it."

The six Fieldmasters were part of Teucher’s trial program. Two worked on big private estates, two went to independent machinery contractors, one belonged to a cooperative, and the last was shared among several smallholders. Ernest wanted to answer one simple question: could a gasoline tractor actually beat a team of working horses on cost and labor?

Eleven days in, the answer was proving messy.

"Let’s look at that gearbox," Ernest said.

The report showed the tractor had run for sixty-three hours under heavy load. The oil was full and clean, yet the final-drive bearing had ground itself down.

"The bearing itself might not be the problem," Hollen observed. "Under that kind of torque, the whole cast housing might be flexing out of line."

"Which means sticking a bigger bearing in won’t fix it," Ernest agreed. "Bring the broken assembly to Plant One. We’ll measure it under stress. And check the other five machines while we’re at it."

Arthur groaned softly. "More railway freight bills."

"Fortunately," Ernest grinned, "we own the railway."

"That doesn’t make it free, Ernest."

"No, but it makes me feel better about it."

Over the next two weeks, the workshop went to work. The engineers reinforced the gearbox casing with cast stiffening ribs so it wouldn’t twist under strain. For the cooling issue, they built a simple, slide-out mesh screen that a farmer could wipe clean by hand without needing tools. For the fourth machine, they lowered the drawbar hitch, restricted the maximum slope angle in the manual, and added an extra counterweight to the nose to keep the front wheels planted.

Yet while three tractors gave the team headaches, the third machine was quietly pulling off a miracle.

It was run by a contractor named William Mercer. Mercer was forty-two, blunt, and had spent his life behind horses and steam traction engines. When Ernest’s men first brought him the machine, he hadn’t asked about horsepower or design. He had asked three things: How much work will it do? How much fuel will it drink? And how often will the damned thing break?

At the end of the month, Mercer mailed in his operating ledger.

Ernest spread it across the drafting table and whistled softly. "Hollen, look at this."

Over twenty-two working days, Mercer had logged 158 engine hours. He had plowed seventy acres of heavy soil, harrowed another forty, and pulled wagons from farm to farm. Because he charged his neighbors by the acre, he kept his machine moving from sunrise to sunset.

Best of all was his expense sheet. Mercer had tracked every gallon of gasoline, every tin of grease, and every hour of his own time, comparing it against the cost of keeping eight heavy draft horses. On small, odd-shaped plots, horses still won out—the tractor lost too much time turning around. On wet slopes, horses were safer. But on wide, flat stretches of open ground, the Fieldmaster did the work of three teams in half the time at nearly two-thirds the cost.

"He’s figured out the system," Ernest said, tapping the numbers. "The tractor doesn’t pay for itself just by sitting there. It pays when it’s kept moving."

Three days later, Ernest, Hollen, and Arthur took the morning train down to Mercer’s district to see the contractor for themselves.

They found him in a wide, golden field, walking alongside the rumbling machine as a two-furrow plow turned up damp, dark earth. When Mercer saw them, he eased the throttle back, stepped down from the iron platform, and wiped sweat from his eyes.

"Lord Teucher!" Mercer called out with a wide grin. "Come to see if your contraption blew up?"

"Not today, Mr. Mercer," Ernest laughed, shaking his dirt-stained hand.

Mercer led them to a wooden shed near the road. Inside, a slate board hung on the wall, crammed with names, acreage, and dates.

"Everyone wants me to plow their dirt on the exact same Monday," Mercer explained, tapping a piece of chalk on the board. "If I drive the tractor back and forth across the county, I burn fuel and waste half my day on the road. So I grouped them. I do all of the north valley first, then swing south. If they don’t like the schedule, they can hitch up their horses."

Arthur leaned in, looking at a handwritten paper on the table. It was a service agreement Mercer had drawn up himself, setting prices and bad-weather clauses.

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "You wrote this?"

"I did," Mercer said proudly.

"Your cancellation clause has a hole big enough to drive a wagon through," Arthur replied, pulling a gold fountain pen from his pocket.

Mercer frowned. "What’s wrong with it?"

For the next twenty minutes, the contractor and the company director leaned over the wooden table, arguing cheerfully about legal liability and plowing rates.

Afterward, Ernest climbed up beside Mercer to ride along for a few passes. The engine chattered with a steady, rhythmic bark. The smell of hot oil and turned earth filled the air.

"How does it feel compared to the first week?" Ernest shouted over the engine noise.

"Better!" Mercer yelled back. "At first, I tried to muscle it like an old steam rig. You can’t do that. You have to listen to the engine. Adjust the plow depth when the soil gets gummy. It isn’t a horse, but it still talks to you if you pay attention."

He paused, then pointed down at the iron seat beneath him.

"Only one real problem, my lord."

"What’s that?"

"The seat is bloody murder," Mercer grunted. "Six hours bouncing over plowed furrows and your spine feels like someone hit it with a fence post."

Hollen, walking nearby, burst out laughing.

Ernest sighed, pulling out a small notebook. "My wife told me the exact same thing."

"Smart woman," Mercer said firmly. "Get her to design the next one. And give me a spot to hang a canteen while you’re at it."