The Mogul

In the early 1930’s, my dad, Charley J. Watson, considered buying another farm tractor. He had purchased a 1924 Fordson and it was running well. Some neighbor had a Mogul tractor that burned tractor fuel or kerosene for sell. Dad got Uncle Walter, the mechanic, to get the tractor running right so he could put it to a field test in pulling the double-gang Oliver disc that he had bought with the Fordson. It should have plenty of power to do the job with considerable reserve. I believe the year was 1932.

The information appearing under the full-page picture, attached, from “The Agricultural Tractor 1855-1950” by R. B. Gray, describes the Mogul as having had a 45 horsepower, 345 RPM, 2 cylinder horizontal-opposed engine. It had open-tower cooling with a belt-driven fan, and a rotary pump to circulate the water. It also had a hit-and-miss governor, make-and-break ignition, and battery start! No car had battery start before 1911. The spur-gear transmission provided one speed forward (2 MPH) and one reverse.

The cooling tower must have been the square box in front that looks like a short casket. The thing appeared to me to resemble a train locomotive that traveled on the ground.

The field test was done on a sandy acre of fairly level ground located across the road in front of the house on the farm that Ely Jasper Watson, Jr. had left to the family.

I was present to witness the field test of the tractor. The stationary gasoline engines of the day had two big flywheels and hit-and-miss ignition. The Mogul looked like it had one of those engines sitting up in the middle of its frame. When the things were running at idle or lightly loaded they would hit pow, pow, pow for a few licks, and then as it sped it would go rack, rack, rack (miss) for a few licks to slow down. This gave the engines a character and entertaining sound that the efficient, boring power plants we have under tractor hoods these days do not have. The Mogul was fun to hear and watch.

Young Roy saw the tractor started and proceed from under a shade tree to the field. It was so slow, it made me hurt. But it was positive in its movement. When we reached the edge of the field, Dad turned the crank on the front of the Oliver disc to set the angle in both the front and rear gangs of the disc. Wherein the disc blades would roll along the ground to facilitate moving the disc from field to field, now with the gangs angled the blades would bite into the earth to break and pulverize the ground. The test was really on.

The Mogul’s engine was going mostly pow, pow, pow! I could have crawled faster. It shuffled over that sandy ground and took half the field to make end row turns. But, despite all the entertainment it afforded, even young Roy could see that it was an old-timey, not a very practical piece of machinery. Dad did not buy the tractor.

The memory of the Mogul moving through that field with Uncle Walter standing to operate it has been etched in my mind through the years. Note the ‘IHC’ emblem on the water tower of the Mogul. Dad’s respect for International Harvester Co. products caused him to look at the old tractor, but it was too old.

By Roy C. Watson 10-20-1998.