2018The Beginning of Mechanised Agriculture - First Day Cover block of 4

The arrival of the first tractor on August 12,1918 marked the beginning of mechanised agriculture in Iceland. Thus a new page was turned in the country’s agricultural history. Its buyers were two agriculture enthusiasts from Akranes, merchant and shipowner Þórður Ásmundsson and ship captain Bjarni Ólafsson. The Avery-type tractor, popularly renamed “Akranes tractor”, had a 16 horsepower diesel engine, weighed about 2.5 tons and was 1.5 m wide and 3.5 m long. It hauled three ploughs but could also be made to haul various kinds of harrows or wagons, excavators and stream rollers, and also a potato-harvesting machine. This in fact became the tractor‘s actual role in Akranes where potatoes had been grown for a long time.