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Case New Holland, Family history

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Case New Holland’s ancestors include the founding fathers of agricultural mechanization, writes WH Parson

Case New Holland (CNH) is a leader in the agricultural and construction equipment businesses. With 11,400 dealers in 160 countries, CNH combines the heritage of its Case and New Holland brands with the strength and resources of its worldwide commercial, industrial, product support, and finance organizations. CNH leads the global construction equipment market with its Case, New Holland, New Holland Construction, and Kobelco brands, which encompass the full spectrum of heavy construction and light industrial equipment for contractors in such industries as road building, quarrying, demolition, excavation, and commercial building. CNH solutions feature ease of operation, intuitive controls, machine durability, and cab comfort. Product categories include wheeled and crawler excavators, backhoes, loaders, skid steer loaders, wheel loaders, graders, articulated trucks, dozers, crawler loaders, telescopic handlers, directional drills, and forklifts.

CNH also manufactures a full line of equipment for use on farms and livestock operations around the world. As parent of the Case IH and New Holland worldwide agricultural equipment brands, and of Steyr, a regional European brand, CNH offers equipment solutions that meet the requirements of every type of agricultural operation. CNH manufactures high- and low-horsepower tractors for use in every application from cash grain production to lawn and garden maintenance, including a wide range of specialty tractors. With its complete range of harvesting equipment, CNH offers the product of choice for a wide variety of specific applications, including cash grain, hay and forage, cotton, sugar cane, and grape producers.

The companies that are now CNH brands have shaped the whole history of agricultural machinery development. The CNH inheritance includes the legacies of pioneering companies such as Braud, Case, Claeys, Fiat, Flexi-Coil, Ford, International Harvester, New Holland, and Steyr. The origins of International Harvester were on the Virginia farm of Robert McCormick, who began work on mechanizing the reaping process in the 1820s. His son, Cyrus, developed a viable version of a mechanical reaper in 1831 and set up the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company in Chicago in 1848. In 1902 his son, Cyrus H. McCormick, brought together the largest harvester manufacturers of the day to form International Harvester. The new company pioneered the first dealer distribution channel, the first full-line product offering, the first diesel wheel tractor in the US, and the first single rotor (Axial-Flow) combine. International Harvester’s signature product, the famous Farmall tractor, was the pioneer for row-crop tractors.

Case began in 1842, when Jerome Increase Case founded his Racine Threshing Machine Works to turn out a machine that threshed wheat 10 times faster than by hand. In 1869 the company expanded into the steam engine business, using a locomotive-type boiler to drive threshers and sawmills by belt.

New Holland began as a one-man repair shop on the edge of New Holland, PA, in 1895. The company’s early industry firsts included the portable feed mill in 1899, the freeze-proof cylinder tank engine in 1901, and the stone crusher in 1910. In 1940 New Holland introduced the revolutionary Nolt mobile pickup hay baler, and the company concentrated its efforts on hay and forage equipment, making improved forage harvesters, rakes, and spreaders.

The automobile genius Henry Ford started using his expertise to make tractors in 1917, and one of Ford & Sons’ first big orders was for 7,000 machines to help boost wartime production in Great Britain. During the 1920s, 75 percent of US farms were using a Fordson tractor. By 1966 Ford tractors were number two in sales worldwide, and as more North American land went into production, Ford responded with more models and larger tractors.

Flexi-Coil was founded in 1952 by Emerson and Kenneth Summach. It began as a family-owned and -operated business based in Western Canada. The first product developed and marketed was the coil packer that is used in the seeding process. While the simple perfection of coil packer technology makes the product as relevant today as it was then, Flexi-Coil’s emphasis on research and development has since broadened the company’s offerings to include seeding, planting, tillage, and chemical application equipment that set industry standards. Over nearly 50 years, a focus on solving growers’ problems with innovative technology allowed Flexi-Coil to expand to supply markets all around the globe.

Steyr was founded by Josef Werndl in 1864, originally to make bicycles. In 1915 it entered the tractor business, and in 1947 it introduced the legendary 180 model tractors, which established the company as the market leader in Austria. In the 1960s Steyr introduced its first crop loader and four-wheel-drive tractor.

Braud started making stationary threshers in 1875, and growth continued for over 70 years until the harvester market entered a crisis period in the 1970s and the company turned its attention to creating a grape harvester. The first model was launched in 1975, and its 1979 version, the Braud 1014, quickly became the best-selling grape harvester in the history of the vineyard. Four years later there were over 2,000 Braud grape harvesters at work in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

Leon Claeys started making harvesting and threshing machines in Belgium in 1906. Three years later he built a plant in Zedelgem, where operations remain today. The company’s first threshing machine was stationary and powered by a horse on a treadmill; Claeys quickly adapted it to operate using a diesel engine, and it became a commercial success.

Fiat’s first agricultural tractor was certainly the first agricultural tractor to be produced in Italy, and perhaps the whole of Europe. It went on sale in 1919 and was manufactured alongside cars and trucks in Fiat’s original Turin factory. Built for plowing and powering stationary threshing machines, the Model 702 was then one of the most efficient tractors in the world and enjoyed very strong export sales. It played a major role in the farm mechanization revolution that took place in the early 20th century.

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