Castlederg celebration for work of farming pioneer

AT the conclusion of the Derg Valley Vintage Club meeting, held in the Derg Valley Leisure Centre, Castlederg, Stevan Patterson unveiled a commemorative plaque to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edward Arthur Johnston – one of the greatest agricultural innovators in history.

Born on August 1, 1875, in New York, USA, Johnston is credited with single-handedly transforming the International Harvester Company into the world’s largest tractor manufacturer by the 1920s.

Following the unveiling, Mr Patterson gave a short talk outlining why Johnston’s achievements are still celebrated today.

Edward Arthur Johnston was of Scots-Irish descet, or as we say locally, Ulster Scots. He was related to Cyrus Hall McCormick, another pioneering agricultural inventor whose family hailed from Tyrone and whose legacy continues in today’s McCormick tractors.

Johnston’s father, Homer Martin Johnston; grandfather, Arthur J Johnston; and great-grandfather, Henry Johnston (born in Co Down on September 4, 1775) were all known for their contributions to agricultural machinery innovation before emigrating to the United States.

In 1894, Johnston began working for the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company as a designer. His ‘Auto-Mower’, a self-propelled mower powered by a petrol engine of his own design, won first prize at the 1900 Paris Exposition.

One of its key innovations was a ‘live’ power drive, allowing the cutting blades to operate independently from the wheels – a concept well ahead of its time and not seen again until the 1940s, when it started to become a popular feature of tractors.

After leaving McCormick in 1902 due to a patent dispute, Johnston rejoined the newly formed International Harvester Company in 1905, recognising the need for his engineering brilliance in developing internal combustion engine tractors.

Over the following decades, Johnston was granted hundreds of patents across a wide range of innovations including cars, trucks, tractors, engines, and farming equipment.

He designed the world’s first pickup trucks – the International Auto-Buggy and Auto Wagon – with large wheels and high clearance suited to rough rural roads.

His tractor designs included numerous models under the Deering, Farmall, McCormick, Mogul, Titan, and International brand names.

He also developed crawler-type tractors (TracTracTor range), experimented with four and six-wheel drive machines, and, in 1935, created International’s first hydraulic lift system.

Years earlier, in 1926, he had already used hydraulics to raise and lower the header on a combine harvester.

Johnston’s most significant contribution was the development of the iconic Farmall tractor – the world’s first all-purpose rowcrop machine – which replaced the horse in crop cultivation. Launched in 1924, the Farmall became so successful that its name overshadowed even that of the International Harvester Company.

Among his other innovations were the now-standard tractor tyre tread pattern (patented in 1913), the Power Take-Off (PTO) system (introduced from 1919), and early petrol-diesel hybrid engines.

In 1935, he designed International’s first diesel-wheeled tractor, which ingeniously started on petrol and switched to diesel once warmed, solving the common cold-start problem of early diesel engines.

Thanks to Johnston’s creative and logical mind, many of his ideas remain in use in modern farming machinery.

In recognition of his contributions, Johnston became vice president of Engineering at International Harvester in 1934 and was awarded the prestigious Cyrus Hall McCormick Medal by the American Society of Agricultural Engineers in 1938.

He retired on March 1, 1939, and passed away in Los Angeles, California, on April 6, 1947, aged 71.

His legacy, alongside those of Cyrus McCormick and Harry Ferguson, strengthens the case for a dedicated Harry Ferguson Museum of Innovation in Northern Ireland to celebrate these giants of agricultural engineering.