RototilleR – The 1950’s
Dwindling sales brought about the end of the “Home Gardener”, and a less expensive new design re-energized the company…until competition threatened survival.
Leaving the trauma of the ‘40’s behind and looking forward to what surprisingly turned out to be a big success in the ‘50’s can’t be properly understood without a bit more personal detail.
Imagine, if you can get your head around this, the horror, the sinking feeling, the despair of realizing that your dream product is about to tank; that the new Roto-Ette – the “Home Gardener” is not gaining market acceptance and production will have to stop. And that’s exactly where Kelsey found himself in 1949.
Figure 1- "Home Gardener" Roto-Ettes coming off the assembly line with George Done, right, shown with his brother Dave and Pete Maraj. These are the men who worked with Mr. Kelsey through the ‘30’s, and ‘40's and who produced the Model T in the ‘50’s
We have already heard in the last episode, “Rototiller – the 1940’s”, the story of George Done, Kelsey’s factory manager, who had seen all this coming and designed a less expensive machine which could be sold at a more competitive price.
Now let’s take a look at what Shirley Done, Georges’ daughter, had to say about this situation in her Memoir, “George’s Story”, copyright 2012 by Shirley Done Phillips:
“George was aware of the dwindling orders (for the “Home Gardener”) and had tried to convince his boss to produce a less expensive model Rototiller; Mr. Kelsey would not agree with George. But on this particular morning, Mr. Kelsey came into George’s office in despair. He had come to the frightening realization that if Rototiller did not get more orders they would go out of business. George jumped at the chance. He looked up from his drawing board (as the story goes), smiled, and said, ‘Don’t worry Mr. Kelsey, I’ve designed a brand new, inexpensive, light weight, rear tine machine. It’s already to go into production here on my drawing board. If we work hard, we can have it into production in two months.”
So, at this point, with no clue about how all this would eventually turn out, we have a very tentative, attractive and surely positive solution to the lagging sales of the Home Gardener - on the drawing board - no less/ no more! No product yet; nothing to try out in the garden, nothing to test market. So, what did they do?
Again, George’s daughter tells the story:
“So that’s what they did! George designed the Model T named after the Model T Ford to appeal to the everyday gardener in price and performance. A selling point was its price of $194.50 – a dollar a pound!”
Apparently, at least according to Shirley Done’s memoir, they decided then and there to commit to production of at least a prototype. Well, they may have haggled a bit but those boys were hungry and anxious to move forward; their futures were on the lines.
But hold on a minute! let’s not leap so fast to judgement. After all, this crew has been building these agricultural machines now for more than ten years, so please credit them with more than a little savvy about proper materials, and gear speeds for rototillers. Was it risky to move this fast? Of course, but they were desperate to find a profitable way forward. And of all the folks who might try to pull it off successfully, they were the ones to place your bet on.
Figure 2 - Line drawing from sales brochure showing 3 moving parts.
Did I say, “leap?” Well I guess that’s a reasonable word to describe the urgency of the moment. It was sink or swim at the Rototiller factory on 102nd St. in Troy! Here we are, still early in 1949 and Kelsey apparently pulled out all the stops and moved fast to get this new “Model T” Roto-Ette, designed by George Done, into production.
(Remember, they could not use the name “Rototiller” now because that title belonged to the Frazer group who were still making the B-Series at the Willow Run plant in Detroit; all the Troy products at that time now had to use the name “Roto-Ette”.)
By the end of the year they had managed to roll out Model T Serial Number 1 and kept on going till number 3449 * finished off the year!
The dealers, it seems, couldn’t get them fast enough. Over the succeeding years of 1950, ’51 and ’52 the factory built almost 17,000 * units more; almost six thousand each year. The “T” had put Rotary tilling and Troy, New York on the home gardeners map.
And that was counting only the “Model T” version of this product. 1952 saw the advent of the “Model 2” Roto-Ette. This was the same basic machine but with the addition of a 2 HP motor, and the “Lightning Change” front end. This was included to facilitate attachments which could perform other chores such as lawn-mowing, snow plowing and many others. With the Model 2 the company success story continued as sales of the Model 2 were counted separately. So, with its own production tally”, the factory had turned out an additional 18,000* units before the decade was over.
Kelsey was a tinkerer. He stuck with the idea of a basic machine with the ability to do many jobs, even though attachments didn’t sell very well. From our perspective today it’s not easy to know who was pushing the demand for these items. But the list of “can-do” chores is impressive: reel mowers, rotary mowers, electric generators, snowplows, snow throwers, a buck saw, water pump and sprayer, all attached by means of the new “lightning-change” front end feature on all Model 2 Roto-Ettes. And if one wanted to make the effort to remove the tines and hood, definitely not a quick-change operation, one could attach a very sturdy two-wheel utility cart. The dealers had all these items on display in their show rooms.
Figure 3 - California dealer, Bill Eaton, displayed Model T's, Model 2's and attachments in his showroom
With still more to come, the next version, the “Model 3”, now fitted with a three HP motor, showed up early in 1952. One might wonder If Kelsey got any sleep at night. He was clearly out to give the customer many choices. These variations came in the form of engine horsepower, tilling width option of between 12” to 20”, transmission speeds by means of belt and pulley variations and several other minor refinements. Again, counting with its separate tally (as was the case for the T’s and the 2’s), the “3” racked up almost two thousand units by the end of 1955.
Figure 4 – Top: C.W.Kelsey demonstrates Model T; Bottom Left: Model 2 with Rotary Mower attached using the new “Lightning Change” feature; Bottom Right: Model T Showing Swingable Handlebars. (source: Roto-Ette sales literature)
And by the end of 1955, all Roto-Ette Model T’s, 2’s and 3’s designed by Kelsey’s factory manager, George Done, had racked up sales of 42,296* units.
But there was more drama yet to unfold before the ‘50’s would roll over for the next decade. Soon, sales began to slow down. Competition from a variety of other tillers offered by popular garden centers was one reason. It seems like all-of-a-sudden every manufacturer of lawn and garden equipment wanted to get into the rototiller act. And this made lack of a workable marketing strategy for a high-end product like Roto-Ette very acute.
Apparently, Kelsey was aware of the need to be in touch with the gardening community. Even while sales were healthy in the early ‘50’s, Kelsey came across “the Have More Plan”, a book by Ed and Carolyn Robinson about self -sufficient living by growing more food at home. He invited the authors to his annual “Dealer field day” In Troy. They showed up with Lyman Wood, the book’s publisher. Wood, a former advertising executive and active gardener, had ideas about selling tillers and wanted to help. He thought the 200 or so Roto-Ette dealers didn’t give the product enough exposure and didn’t generate enough sales volume. He proposed selling direct to consumers by advertising in garden publications. Kelsey said no thanks. But he did adopt the Have-More-Plan as a sales aid which helped a bit with its mantra, “A little Land, A lot of living”. Clearly, this message was not getting out to enough potential buyers, and there was no plan to make it happen. Wood pointed out the need to talk directly to home gardeners about the benefits offered by the Roto-Ette to maximize sales potential; Kelsey wasn’t buying it. When Wood expressed interest in obtaining an equity position in the company, Kelsey said, “Sorry, we are a family company”; Wood was soon gone.
Looking back at this scene it appears Lyman Wood was throwing Kelsey a lifeline, albeit non-traditional for the times, and Kelsey was too “old school” to process it that way. Later events in the 1960’s will have a lot more to say about this.
Meanwhile, let me take a minute here to relate a simple tiller sales strategy that worked:
While all this was going on, Ken Abele of Albany was selling tillers with a simple and effective strategy. The family lived on Everett Road where his father had a tool and die shop. They had a garden across the road, which is now a parking lot for large road equipment. Ken bought a Roto-Ette for use in the garden. While he worked at Dads shop people driving by saw the garden and the tiller. Some stopped and asked about it and Ken would tell how it worked. He thought maybe he should try to sell them and proceeded to get a dealership. He left one tiller by the roadside garden all day with a sign “ask me about the tiller in the shop”. When asked, he would tell them to go back to the tiller, pull the starter cord and take it out for a spin in the garden; then if they liked it, or had questions, come back to the shop and we’ll talk. The success of this strategy led Abele to become a garden equipment dealership representing a range of manufacturers. Often, he would lead the field in annual sales for many of his major suppliers.
Note: Ken Abele went on to build Abele Tractor Co. of Everett Road. He told this story to me personally as he was heading off to a winter in Florida. He had proved that people need to see what a rototiller can do before buying. Ken showed people the tiller benefits first, then talked price.
By 1957, as Kelsey was preparing to retire, the factory was still making some Model 2’s and 3’s, as well as a chain drive model, the 111, and a front-end tiller called the 7 A.
Then, as if adding a bit more grief to all the chaos, George B Cluett II, Kelsey’s founding partner, had cashed out sometime in the early ‘50’s, exactly when is not clear, thus putting the firms’ capitalization at risk. To understand what happened next, Allen Cluett, whose father had been employed at Rototiller, Inc. since just after WWII to the end in 1959, explains:
“Kelsey then hired a well-known businessman as president in 1958 by the name of John Wright, who had the task of pulling all this off and somehow getting Kelsey out with a whole, or nearly whole, skin. Wright, unable to turn the company around after trying new products that ranged from front end tillers to chainsaws, broke his agreement with Kelsey by selling the company in February 1960 to the Porter-Cable Co.(P-C) of Syracuse, NY.
Then by December 1960, only ten months after P-C had moved their newly acquired Rototiller Div. (RT) to Syracuse, P-C was acquired by Rockwell International (RI) of Pittsburgh, PA, which quickly decided to discard P-C’s entire lawn and garden division, now including RT. Meanwhile RI by virtue of this acquisition had become legally responsible for making available Rototiller spare parts for a period of five years. With this liability in mind, Rockwell Int. approached George Done about contracting out the parts business.”
And guess where the ball bounced this time?
Here again, Allen Cluett explains: “You got it!” Right back to Troy, NY, where George Done, brother Dave and Pete Maraj were in the process of making a new rear-tine tiller aptly named the Trojan Horse. George saved the day once more by covertly designing this new tiller right underneath Porter-Cables’ nose. Now, with RI supplying spare parts income and George forming a new company, he was again the savior of the day.”
All of which leads to the next episode: “RototilleR - The 1960’s” in which we see history repeating itself with George Done and Lyman Wood ushering-in Watco Products, Inc., the birth of “Troy-Bilt” and Garden Way Mfg. Co.
Fasten your seat belts, and Stay tuned…
Special note from the author: I would like to acknowledge and thank the important help in preparing this article from Allen B. Cluett for providing technical and historical accuracy; and from S. Michael Halloran, Ret. Professor of English at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) for editorial help; and from Charlie Zuck for sharing his website with readers. Videos of all models of Charlies collection can be seen at www.zucksrototillers.com.
*Credits and Sources:
“Rototiller in America” - Donald A. Jones
Infinity Publishing, Haverford, PA 2003
“The Lyman P Wood Story” – Roger Griffith
In Brief Press, Charlotte, VT 1994
“George’s Story” – Shirley Done Phillips
Troy Book Makers, Troy, NY 2012
“Gardening Beyond the Plow” – Garden Way, Inc. 1981
“A Little Power- A Lot of Living” (with the 1953 Rototiller) - Ed Robinson
Farm and Garden Research Associates, Noroton, CT 1952
The times Record Newspapers, Troy, NY
The Post Star Newspaper, Syracuse, NY