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Glenbow Archives ND-8-163
Supersizingseedingtechnology
THIS FARMER LOADING HIS SEED
drill near Dalroy, AB, was employing
near-top-of-the-line equipment in 1911.
Did he have any idea what was to come in
seeding technology? In this photo taken
by W.J. Oliver, the farmer is working the
field with a Pioneer tractor pulling three
Van Brunt 18-run press drills, which were
able to seed a width of six metres with
each pass.
The Pioneer Tractor Co. was launched
in 1909 in Minneapolis, MN, according
to an article in
Gas Engine
magazine.
Although it produced this heavy, well-built
and powerful tractor, the manufacturer
soon went out of business, as did nearly
900 other tractor makers of the day.
Although the Van Brunt grain drill
ceased production about 50 years ago,
it was a very popular piece of seeding
equipment developed in the late 1800s by
Wisconsin brothers George and William
Van Brunt. According to
Farm Collector
magazine, George Van Brunt carved the
first model of the drill by hand out of a
turnip.
The Van Brunts found a great deal of
success with their farm machinery busi-
ness and were offered multiple buyouts by
other companies, but it wasn’t until John
Deere made them an irresistible offer in
1911 that the two companies consolidated.
The seed drills carried the combined name
of John Deere Van Brunt until the Van
Brunt name was dropped in the 1960s.
For this farmer, filling the grain box
of a machine that could drill seed into
the ground represented a huge techno-
logical leap forward. However, he surely
couldn’t have imagined that one day
these same fields would be planted using
air-conditioned four-wheel-drive tractors
outfitted with auto-steer GPS guidance
and onboard computers. Nor that they
would pull air-drill seeding equipment
utilizing multiple tanks for seed and fer-
tilizer, and be outfitted with winged drill
sections 30 metres wide. Even less so
that seeding equipment might one day be
carried out by fully automated, driverless
equipment.
AGAINST
THE GRAIN
Winter
2018
Grains
West
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