Black and white photograph of a Fordson tractor pulling an Allis Chalmers All Crop combine harvester

P FW PH2/C106/1

Undated [1950s]

Florence Sewing Machine Company, Farmers Weekly, Allis-Chalmers Great Britain Ltd

Cambridgeshire

1 photograph

type: PRINT, dimensions: 14.7 x 11.2 cm

English

file

HARVESTING, Harvesting machinery, Combine harvesters, Tractors, Cambridgeshire, Combine harvesters, Fordson tractors, Graphic Materials

<DIV STYLE="text-align:Justify;font-family:Georgia;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:16;color:#000000;"><P><SPAN><SPAN>5. &lt;B&gt; Allis-Chalmers All-Crop combine harvester, Cambridgeshire, late 1930s. &lt;/B&gt; &lt;P&gt; The firm of Allis-Chalmers orginated in Milwaukee, USA, in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1931, it acquired the business of Advance-Rumely &amp; Co, steam and threshing machine manufacturers of Indiana. At the same time, it purchased the rights to make a baby combine that had been developed by two Californians, Robert Fleming and Guy Hall. This became the All-Crop Harvester, a combine suited to the smaller family farm with a lightweight mechanism that could be driven from the power take-off of an ordinary tractor. It proved an almost instant success in the US and by 1938, when the Model 40 appeared, it was being manufactured at a rate of up to 250 machines a day. In the peak year of 1951, over 27,000 of these distinctive machines in their orange livery were produced. It was also comparatively cheap and very suited to the scale of British farms and thus a popular choice in the 1940s and 1950s when harvesting by combine really took off. The example above had a five foot (1.5m) wide cut and is shown being pulled and powered by a Standard Fordson tractor. &lt;P&gt; P FW PH2/C106/1</SPAN></SPAN></P></DIV>

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