Flivver Farm Machinery

Last summer Chicago's mammoth International Harvester Co., No. i U. S. farm implement manufacturer, belatedly entered the booming small-implement market with a new, light tractor selling at $515, or $225 cheaper than any previous International model. Fortnight ago it caught up with the sensationally successful market in small combines (which harvest and thresh crops in a single operation as they move through fields) by introducing a 4-ft. model priced at $405--cheapest in the U. S. save for Allis-Chalmers' 40-in., $340 combine which opened up the small-combine field five years ago.

Last week, hot on big International's heels followed two smaller competitors. Oliver Farm Equipment Co. promised a 5-ft., $575 combine would be readyfor mid-April shipment. J. I. Case Co. announced immediate mass production of a 4 1/2ft., $530 model.

Ponderous, expensive ($1,500 & up) was the combine of a decade ago, which cut a swath of eight feet or more, was used for little but wheat harvesting. Today its little brother is thoroughly at home among soybeans, cowpeas, small grains. Last year 80% of the 31,000 combines sold in the U. S. were little fellows six feet and under. Since U. S. farm buying power in 1939 rose 5% to $8,518,000,000, the industry cocks a hopeful eye at the 1,183,687 small farms in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin (not counting other hundreds of thousands in other States), growers of wheat, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, red clover seed, alfalfa, timothy, sweet clover, beans, cowpeas--as potential market for small combines.

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