The Sunnybrook Farm
Museum’s collection of
tractors spans the years from
the 1910s to the 1960s.
Early farming relied on
teams of horses. A
partnership grew between the
farmer and his animals, and
the first steam engines and
tractors were treated with
| suspicion and scorn. Some
farmers purchased tractors as
early as the late 1890s, only
to be laughed at by their
neighbours. Horses would
never be replaced by
machines, some said.
During the First World
War, farm boys enlisted,
leaving a shortage of farm
| labour. Farmers began to turn
to tractors—they had a nation
to feed and a tractor could
work three times as much land
as a two-horse team. The
tractor became the new
workhorse on the Canadian
farm.
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