About 1915, a Nebraska farmer named Wilmot Fl Crozier, who has also been
a schoolteacher (to support the farm, he said), purchased a "Ford" tractor
from the Minneapolis outfit not related to Henry Ford. (They had
a man named Ford join the company in order to use the name.) The tractor
was so unsatisfactory that he demanded the company replace it. They
did, but the replacement was worse. Farmer Crozier then bought a Bull
tractor. This too was completely unsatisfactory. Next he bought a 1918
Rumely "Three-plow." The Rumely met and exceeded Crozier's expectations.
Not only did it stand up the strains of farming, he was able
to regularly pull a five-bottom plow. Shortly afterward, Crozier was
elected to the Nebraska legislature.
In 1919, Representative Crozier and Senator Charles Warner
introduced legislation that resulted in the Nebraska Test Law. The law
required that any tractor so in the state of Nebraska had to be
certified by the state. The state was to test the tractors to see that
they lived up to their advertised claims. The University of Nebraska's
Agricultural Engineering Department would conduct the tests. L. W.
Chase and Claude Shedd devised the tests and the test equipment, which
have since become standards for the world.
The first test was made in the fall of 1919 (things happened a lot
faster in those days) of a Twin City 12-20, but could not be completed
because of snowfall. The first complete test was made in the spring of
1920. A certificate was issued for the Waterloo Boy Model N.
*Exerpted from "Illustrated Ford & Fordson Tractor Buyers Guide" Robert N. Pripps