Chapter 328: Soil Doesn’t Care About Horsepower

Charles Whitcomb arrived at Plant One with three young draftsmen, two wooden crates, and an opinion about absolutely everything.

The first thing he tore into was the Fieldmaster’s drawbar.

The second was the clearance around the massive rear wheels.

The third was the boneheaded way Ernest’s crew had bolted a plow to the frame during their first field run.

By the fourth complaint, Hollen was grinning like an idiot. By the seventh, Arthur had stopped pretending to take notes. And by the tenth, Ernest couldn’t help but laugh.

"Mr. Whitcomb," Ernest cut in, holding up a hand. "Are you trying to tell us we’ve done everything wrong?"

The old manufacturer stroked his gray beard. "Not everything, Lord Teucher."

"Well, that’s a relief."

"Your engine is quite good."

Hollen chuckled. "High praise from you, old man!"

Whitcomb didn’t crack a smile. "You gentlemen build machines as if you’re pulling railcars on flat track. Just because your engine has the brute strength to drag an iron frame through the dirt doesn’t mean the blades are doing their job. That isn’t how soil works."

Ernest looked over at Hollen, whose grin only widened. "I like him," Hollen muttered.

Arthur rubbed his temples. "Of course you do."

Whitcomb wasn’t just blustering. He had spent forty years running an agricultural works that started as a smoky village blacksmith shop. His plows and seeders weren’t pretty—no polished brass or soft leather—but farmers trusted them because they simply worked.

A plow that sliced cleanly through sand could choke on wet clay. A seeder that dropped wheat evenly might crush barley. And if a tractor pulled from the wrong angle, all that raw horsepower would just twist the plow beam or bury the blades too deep.

Ernest had invited Whitcomb to Oriel for that hard-earned wisdom. He just hadn’t expected the man to start schooling them before lunch.

Down in the workshop, they cleared a space around a Fieldmaster and three implements Whitcomb had brought along: a two-furrow plow, a heavy harrow, and a grain drill.

Whitcomb marched right up to the plow. "Here’s your real problem. You’re trying to make a tool built for horses work behind an engine."

"We know that," Hollen said, crossing his arms.

"Do you?" Whitcomb tapped the iron beam. "A horse walks in the furrow, pulling from its shoulders. A man walks behind, his hands on the handles, feeling every rock and adjusting the tilt on the fly. Your tractor pulls from down low, your driver sits way up front, and your wheels pack the ground before the blade even hits it."

Ernest leaned in, catching on. "If the angle of draft is wrong, the blade fights the ground instead of slicing through it."

"Exactly," Whitcomb said, his eyes lighting up. "Which eats your engine’s power, spins your wheels in place, and leaves a sloppy furrow."

Hollen chuckled. "Careful, Charles. He learns fast."

For the next two hours, the workshop turned into an open debate. Draftsmen measured hitch heights, argued over blade angles, and sketched new brackets directly onto the wooden workbenches.

Around one o’clock, Arthur finally slammed his ledger shut. "Gentlemen. Is anyone planning to eat, or are we starving to death in this shed?"

Whitcomb frowned, looking up from a sketch. "We haven’t finished the draft geometry."

"With all respect, Mr. Whitcomb," Arthur sighed, "the plow will still be here after a sandwich."

Over lunch in the dining hall, Whitcomb softened up. He shared stories of stubborn farmers, the pain of seasonal sales, and how brutal the rural market could be.

"Farmers don’t care about shiny gadgets, Lord Teucher," Whitcomb said between bites. "If a machine saves their back or makes them an extra coin, they buy it. If it doesn’t, they won’t touch it twice."

Then he looked Ernest dead in the eye. "You build trucks, cars, and steel bridges. You’re swimming in orders. Why bother getting your boots muddy with farm gear?"

Ernest thought about giving a grand speech about national food supplies. Instead, he pictured Thomas Bell standing in a muddy coat, holding a piece of paper covered in uneven handwriting.

"A farmer asked if our engines could lighten his load," Ernest said simply. "That’s how it started."

Whitcomb stared at him for a quiet moment, then offered a small, approving nod. "Fair enough."

That afternoon, they shook on a deal: the Teucher–Whitcomb Implement Development Program. No greedy exclusivity clauses, no corporate buyout—just two practical companies teaming up to make sure their machines fit together seamlessly.

Nine days later, the first modified plow was ready.

It featured a reinforced hitch made specifically for the tractor’s low drawbar, a balanced frame, and a small depth-control wheel to keep the blades from burying themselves too deep.

They hauled it out to an estate field near Oriel to test it against their earlier benchmarks. Whitcomb, Hollen, and Ernest tagged along, while Arthur stayed behind at the office—claiming three engineers were plenty, though Hollen swore he just didn’t want to ruin his shoes.

The Fieldmaster fired up and dropped the blades into the soil.

Chuff—chuff—chuff.

Two clean, dark furrows rolled off the blades like peeled fruit.

Whitcomb walked alongside the moving machine, knelt down, scooped up a handful of loose dirt, and let it sift through his fingers.

"Better," Whitcomb called out.

Hollen grinned. "How much better?"

The test crew ran the numbers. "About eleven percent less drag on the engine," Ernest reported, checking the dials. "Speed is steady, and wheel slip dropped."

"And the furrows are clean," Whitcomb added, wiping his hands on a rag.

Ernest teased, "Does the neatness really matter that much?"

Whitcomb gave him a stern, fatherly glare. "Lord Teucher. Don’t be an engineer."

Hollen roared with laughter.

The harrow was an easy fix, requiring just a stronger hitch and a wider frame. But when they tackled the seed drill, their luck ran out.

The drill’s planting mechanism relied on its ground wheels spinning to meter out the seed. Pulled by a horse, it was smooth. Pulled by a vibrating, rumbling tractor across uneven ruts, the mechanism choked.

In their first test, half the rows got buried in piles of seed while others got nothing at all.

Whitcomb slammed his pencil on the bench after the third failed tweak. "Bloody useless! We’ve built these drills for thirty years, and this tractor is shaking the whole thing to pieces!"

"We’re changing too many variables at once," Ernest said calmly. "We altered the chassis, the hitch, the feed speed, and the gears all together. Let’s roll back to your original feed design and only adjust the drive link."

Whitcomb huffed, glared at the blueprints, and finally sighed. "Fine. You’re right."

The next trial worked. It wasn’t perfect yet, but the grain fell in even lines without clogging.

"Now," Hollen remarked, looking over the freshly planted strip, "we wait a couple of months to see if anything actually grows."

Whitcomb smirked. "Welcome to farming, boys."