As Basic As A Tractor Can Be

This single cylinder 1909 International tractor was obviously meant to do belt work, such as running a threshing machine. It was probably designed to attract buyers away from the steam traction engine market with its simple design. Traction work would have been a stretch for this machine, with one power stroke for every two revolutions of the flywheels. A single cylinder steam engine has two power strokes with each revolution, the same as four cylinder gas engine. An engine such as this one cannot recover its speed quickly when heavy loads are thrust on it, since the power stroke not only has to catch up with the load, but also has to rev up the heavy flywheels again, which are meant to keep the speed somewhat even with the single cylinder design. I think that this engine would have had a real struggle pulling a sawmill, but would have been OK with threshing and corn shelling. I am glad that some of these early oddities have survived, and you have to wonder how the original owners felt about machines like this one after a season or two working them on the farm.