Ford Motor Company. Office of the General Counsel.

Henry Ford dabbled in tractor designs and production through 1917 when the British government requested Ford's help to alleviate food shortages during World War I. Subsequent Fordson tractor production alternated between Cork, Ireland, Ford's Highland Park and Rouge River plants in Michigan, and Dagenham, England. As early as 1917, Harry Ferguson developed a multi-point hitching system designed specifically for the Fordson tractor resulting in various implements that were manufactured and distributed in the United States through Ferguson-Sherman Manufacturing Co. With the help of his partners, George and Eber Sherman, Harry Ferguson demonstrated his plow and hitching system to Henry Ford at Ford's Fair Lane Estate in October, 1938. Henry Ford and Harry Ferguson entered into a gentlemen's agreement to produce and distribute tractors based on their mutual desire to mechanize farming. The partnership, based only on a handshake between the two men, resulted in a revolutionary design in power farming. The partnership combined Harry Ferguson's 3-point unit hitch and hydraulic control with the Fordson tractor and Ford Motor Company's engineering and manufacturing expertise to produce the Ford Tractor with the Ferguson System. Between 1939 and 1946, Ford Motor Company manufactured the 9N and 2N tractors and sold them to Harry Ferguson Inc. for distribution. In 1946, Henry Ford II ended the agreement citing operating losses as a primary factor but agreed to provide Harry Ferguson Inc. with tractors through July of 1947. At the same time, Ford Motor Company also announced an agreement with the newly formed Dearborn Motors Corporation to distribute the new 8N tractor that Ford was to produce. With the loss of their tractor supplier, the management of Harry Ferguson Inc. scrambled to find a manufacturing partner to produce a tractor. Ultimately, Harry Ferguson Inc. imported Ferguson's English produced TO-20 tractor until a tractor plant was built in Detroit in 1948. In January 1948, Harry Ferguson sued Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford II, and various executives of Ford and Dearborn Motors for patent infringement and unfair competition practices totaling $310 million in damages. The ensuing lawsuit lasted until April, 1952, when Ford and Ferguson agreed to a nearly $10 million settlement.