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Oliver Farm Equipment Company
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Oliver Farm Equipment Company
The Oliver Farm Equipment Company was an American farm equipment manufacturer from the 20th century. It was formed as a result of a 1929 merger of four companies: the American Seeding Machine Company of Richmond, Indiana; Oliver Chilled Plow Works of South Bend, Indiana; Hart-Parr Tractor Company of Charles City, Iowa; and Nichols and Shepard Company of Battle Creek, Michigan.
On November 1, 1960, the White Motor Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio, purchased the Oliver Farm Equipment Company.
The Oliver Farm Equipment Company continued to make tractors until they went out of production in 1976.
Four companies merged on April 1, 1929, to form the Oliver Farm Equipment Company: The Oliver Chilled Plow Company, dating from 1855; the Hart-Parr Tractor Company from 1897, and the American Seeding Machine Company and Nichols and Shepard Company, both dating from 1848.
By 1929, each of these companies had reached a point where continuing operations independently would not be feasible. For most of them, the market had some time earlier reached a saturation point, and in some instances, their machines were dated and rapidly approaching obsolescence. By uniting their various and somewhat diverse product lines into a single company, Oliver Farm Equipment immediately became a full-line manufacturer.
The American Seeding Machine Company was organized in 1903 from the a merger of seven different manufacturers of grain drills, corn planters and other "seeding machines." The leading corporate component among the seven merged companies was the Superior Drill Company of Springfield, Ohio. Accordingly, the American Seeding Machine Company established its corporate headquarters at Springfield in the facilities formerly operated by the Superior Drill Company. Other companies which formed the 1903 merger include P. P. Mast and Company (est. 1856), Hoosier Drill Company (est. 1857), the Empire Drill Company, and Bickford & Huffman. The Superior Drill Company name lived on for many years following the merger that created Oliver, in the "Oliver Superior" line of seeding drills and related equipment.
James Oliver started the Oliver Chilled Plow Works in 1853 In Mishawaka, Indiana where he worked in a foundry. He later bought into an already existing small foundry in South Bend, Ind. Plows with cast iron bottoms and moldboards had been successfully used by farmers and planters in the eastern states of the United States since the time of Thomas Jefferson. However, in the sticky soils of North Dakota and various other portions of the Midwest, the cast iron plows would not "scour"; that is, the sticky soil would cling to the plow, disrupting the flow of soil over the plow's surface, making plowing impossible. Thus, when settlement of North America moved over the Allegheny Mountains into the Midwest, there was a need for a new plow that would be able to scour in the soils of the Midwest. To allow a cast iron bottom to scour in sticky soil, various methods of heat treating for creating a hardened surface on the metal plow bottom had been attempted. All of these processes failed because the hard surface created was very thin and would soon wear through to the soft iron under the heat-treated surface. James Oliver developed his sand casting process to include rapid chilling of the molten iron near the outside surface of the casting, which resulted in a bottom that had a thick hardened surface with far greater wearability than competing plow bottoms.
Another problem common to cast iron plow bottoms was the lack of soundness and uniformity in the metal's molecular structure, which meant that some cast iron bottoms would have soft spots in the hardened surface, reducing the wearability of the plow bottom. Improvements made by James Oliver to his casting process also overcame this problem. Consequently, on June 30, 1857, James Oliver obtained his first patent from the United States government for his chilled plow shares and in February 1869, he obtained another patent for his process. What Oliver accomplished by this invention is sometimes referred to as chill hardening, or simply chilling. The purpose of chilling is to produce an extremely hard and durable exterior of the object. This is done by including "chills", pieces of metal, into the sand mold, such that when the molten iron is poured into the mould, the portion next to the chill cools rapidly, hardening in a way akin to quenching. This chilled area forms the exterior of the plowpoint. This metal cools more quickly than the metal which forms the other portion of the plowshare, and effectively becomes case hardened. Also, the vapors which arise as the molten metal comes in contact with the mould are expelled through a spout. Had these vapors been trapped in the mould, they would have caused impurities and would have weakened the plowpoint at the place where it should have been the hardest. To harden the plowpoints, Oliver arranged his moulding apparatus in such manner that the surface of the chill was in a position so that the melted metal first came into contact with the chill at the edge of the plowshare. This insured a hard plow cutting point.
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Oliver Farm Equipment Company
The Oliver Farm Equipment Company was an American farm equipment manufacturer from the 20th century. It was formed as a result of a 1929 merger of four companies: the American Seeding Machine Company of Richmond, Indiana; Oliver Chilled Plow Works of South Bend, Indiana; Hart-Parr Tractor Company of Charles City, Iowa; and Nichols and Shepard Company of Battle Creek, Michigan.
On November 1, 1960, the White Motor Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio, purchased the Oliver Farm Equipment Company.
The Oliver Farm Equipment Company continued to make tractors until they went out of production in 1976.
Four companies merged on April 1, 1929, to form the Oliver Farm Equipment Company: The Oliver Chilled Plow Company, dating from 1855; the Hart-Parr Tractor Company from 1897, and the American Seeding Machine Company and Nichols and Shepard Company, both dating from 1848.
By 1929, each of these companies had reached a point where continuing operations independently would not be feasible. For most of them, the market had some time earlier reached a saturation point, and in some instances, their machines were dated and rapidly approaching obsolescence. By uniting their various and somewhat diverse product lines into a single company, Oliver Farm Equipment immediately became a full-line manufacturer.
The American Seeding Machine Company was organized in 1903 from the a merger of seven different manufacturers of grain drills, corn planters and other "seeding machines." The leading corporate component among the seven merged companies was the Superior Drill Company of Springfield, Ohio. Accordingly, the American Seeding Machine Company established its corporate headquarters at Springfield in the facilities formerly operated by the Superior Drill Company. Other companies which formed the 1903 merger include P. P. Mast and Company (est. 1856), Hoosier Drill Company (est. 1857), the Empire Drill Company, and Bickford & Huffman. The Superior Drill Company name lived on for many years following the merger that created Oliver, in the "Oliver Superior" line of seeding drills and related equipment.
James Oliver started the Oliver Chilled Plow Works in 1853 In Mishawaka, Indiana where he worked in a foundry. He later bought into an already existing small foundry in South Bend, Ind. Plows with cast iron bottoms and moldboards had been successfully used by farmers and planters in the eastern states of the United States since the time of Thomas Jefferson. However, in the sticky soils of North Dakota and various other portions of the Midwest, the cast iron plows would not "scour"; that is, the sticky soil would cling to the plow, disrupting the flow of soil over the plow's surface, making plowing impossible. Thus, when settlement of North America moved over the Allegheny Mountains into the Midwest, there was a need for a new plow that would be able to scour in the soils of the Midwest. To allow a cast iron bottom to scour in sticky soil, various methods of heat treating for creating a hardened surface on the metal plow bottom had been attempted. All of these processes failed because the hard surface created was very thin and would soon wear through to the soft iron under the heat-treated surface. James Oliver developed his sand casting process to include rapid chilling of the molten iron near the outside surface of the casting, which resulted in a bottom that had a thick hardened surface with far greater wearability than competing plow bottoms.
Another problem common to cast iron plow bottoms was the lack of soundness and uniformity in the metal's molecular structure, which meant that some cast iron bottoms would have soft spots in the hardened surface, reducing the wearability of the plow bottom. Improvements made by James Oliver to his casting process also overcame this problem. Consequently, on June 30, 1857, James Oliver obtained his first patent from the United States government for his chilled plow shares and in February 1869, he obtained another patent for his process. What Oliver accomplished by this invention is sometimes referred to as chill hardening, or simply chilling. The purpose of chilling is to produce an extremely hard and durable exterior of the object. This is done by including "chills", pieces of metal, into the sand mold, such that when the molten iron is poured into the mould, the portion next to the chill cools rapidly, hardening in a way akin to quenching. This chilled area forms the exterior of the plowpoint. This metal cools more quickly than the metal which forms the other portion of the plowshare, and effectively becomes case hardened. Also, the vapors which arise as the molten metal comes in contact with the mould are expelled through a spout. Had these vapors been trapped in the mould, they would have caused impurities and would have weakened the plowpoint at the place where it should have been the hardest. To harden the plowpoints, Oliver arranged his moulding apparatus in such manner that the surface of the chill was in a position so that the melted metal first came into contact with the chill at the edge of the plowshare. This insured a hard plow cutting point.
