Chiming in for the Internationals, but giving Fordson and others their due . . .
Those are large questions. What were they farming (i.e., what kind of crops)? Big spread or small? Row crops such as corn or beans, for example, would have taken a relatively small internal combustion tractor compared to steamers that could haul ganged plows to bust sod or turn ground, but were to big and cumbersome for much else in the way of field work.
I'm thinking also that in 1924, it was a prosperous farmer that would have had a tractor on a small farm. It sits kind of in the middle of the span of years that tractors just began to be affordable and economical. On the earlier end of that span, most work (plowing, planting, cutting and binding) was done with equipment drawn by horses, mules and oxen, even on larger spreads. If there was anything like a steamer in the neighborhood for threshing and the like, folks would either pay or swap out work with the fella that had the steamer and thresher for it's services in cleaning stooked grain.
In 1924, any tractor of a "modern" design on a smaller farm would have been relatively new, les than ten years old. For Internationals, they came out with the 15-30 in 1921 (15hp on the drawbar, 30 on the belt and PTO). They dropped the International brand on it in 1923 and changed it to McCormick-Deering when it went into regular production. 1923 saw the introduction of the 10-20 (same deal on the hp) but it didn't go into full production until 1924, so would have been brand new in the setting of your narrative. (This info is from Guy Fay's IH Tractor Data Book, MBI Publishing Co). The Farmall Regular would have been a rare find in 1924.
All these tractors started with a hand crank and (I believe) had hand clutches, operated by a long hand lever as opposed to a pedal. Nix on any night work in the fields under anything but a full and bright moon, as electrical lighting was still a few years away.
Prior to these, Deering and McCormick, the two companies that merged to form IH, put out tractors known, respectively as Titans and Moguls.
You might try to get your hands on a book, "The American Tractor" by P.W. Ertel, also from MBI. It goes through each of several makes of internal combustion tractor from their early years, and would give you a good feel for what was available for tractors in the early twenties and discusses how technology advanced. The Fordson F is in there, the early Hart-Parrs and Cases, Internationals (including the Titans and Moguls), the Deere Waterloo Boy . . .
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Today's Featured Article - The Day Mom Drove the 8N - by Brian Browning. My Dad was wanting to put in a garden but couldn't operate the 8N and handle the old horse drawn plow he had found and rigged up to use with the tractor. Well, he decided to go get Mom out of the house and have her drive the tractor while he walked behind the plow. You got to understand that while my Mom is a hard worker who will always help whenever she can... she had never operated farm machinery before that day. Dad got her out there, explained how the clutch was the same as in our o
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