Manitoba Agricultural College engineers course
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- Published on Thursday, July 7, 2016
By Alex Campbell
Director, Manitoba Agricultural Museum
Manitoba’s rapid growth at the turn of the century prompted the provincial government to support agricultural research and education. The Manitoba Agricultural College (MAC) was established in 1905, with the objective of educating students in modern farming practices. MAC was the first college of its kind in Western Canada, and only the third in all of Canada. MAC offered courses in horticulture, agricultural engineering, animal husbandry, farm management and home economics.
One of the agricultural engineering courses offered was a course training students in the operation of steam engines and the new fangled gasoline tractors. Given the rapid expansion in the number of steam engines and tractors on the Prairies and general unfamiliarity of the farm population with machinery, this sort of course was much needed at this time.
While MAC was designed to give men a solid educational background in agricultural sciences, MAC also included a division of Home Economics, which was intended to give young ladies from rural communities a scientific background in homemaking. The women were to receive an education in health, nutrition, and home management. Courses were offered in subjects such as food safety, laundry chemistry, human physiology and home based accounting. With such training, the hope was that the graduates would return to their home communities, become leaders and impart their knowledge to other ladies in the area.
MAC was built at a Winnipeg site in the Tuxedo neighborhood, close to Assiniboine Park, with construction starting in 1905. By 1910, MAC had outgrown its Tuxedo campus and found that obtaining additional land in the immediate area of the campus was impossible. Seven years after the Tuxedo campus was opened, MAC moved to a new site in Fort Garry, which is now the location of the University of Manitoba. The Tuxedo campus became the Fort Osborne barracks used by the Canadian military from 1914 to 1968, when Kapyong Barracks were built. The site was then acquired by the Provincial Government who moved government offices into the buildings. After that, it was purchased from the Provincial Government and redeveloped into the Asper Jewish Community Campus.
One of the tractors used for training was a 30 horsepower Big Four. The Big Four tractor designs came from the Transit Thresher Company, which set out to design a thresher which could move around a harvested grain field to the stooks of grain, so eliminating the need to bring the sheaves to the thresher. For this purpose, a belt pulley at the back of a gas tractor was very useful, as the tractor could then drive a threshing machine, which was towed behind the tractor. After design work had taken place, Transit realized the entire idea was not workable, as a drive belt was not compatible with turning a tractor towing a threshing machine. But Transit realized that the tractor they had designed was a decent design so they began to build and sell it as the 25 horsepower Big Four. The Big Four retained the rear mounted belt pulley, as moving it to a more conventional location would have involved a major re-design.
The Big Four tractor entered production in the US in 1906.
The tractor was the first tractor with a four cylinder engine, which explains why the tractor was known as Big Four. Transit changed its name to the Gas Traction Company in 1908, as this name better reflected what the company manufactured. The Big Four was a sales success with demand outstripping supply. In 1909, the Gas Traction Company of Winnipeg was organized and purchased the Canadian patent rights for the Big Four from the Gas Traction Company. Gas Traction of Winnipeg wasted no time erecting a factory in Elmwood, a suburb of Winnipeg, with the first tractor rolling out of the plant in March, 1910. In 1912, Emerson-Brantingham purchased the Gas Traction Companies and the Winnipeg plant was closed. Production of the Big Four continued until 1920, however Emerson-Brantingham was producing smaller and lighter tractors soon after purchasing the Gas Traction Companies. Emerson-Brantingham was sold to J. I. Case in 1928.
On Sunday, July 31, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and the Manitoba Agricultural Museum will host Harvesting Hope: a World Record to Help the Hungry. To help end global hunger, over 500 volunteers from 100 communities across Canada will operate 125 early 20th century threshing machines to harvest a 100 acre crop of wheat. When in operation, the equipment will require over four football fields of space. For more information on attending or how to participate, please visit http://www.harvestinghope.ca/ or follow us on twitter @harvesthope2016.
The Manitoba Agricultural Museum is open year round and operates a website at http://ag-museum.mb.ca/ which can provide visitors with information on the museum, including location and hours of operation.
