I believe it was completely arbitrary. Electron flow is from negative to positive - electrons are the charged particles - charged negatively - they "flow" towards the lack of negative charge on the positive side -
So positive ground might have sounded like a logical choice.
(however current flows from positive to negative... so..)
The bottom line is - it really doesn't matter.
I think auto/tractor manufactureres happened to chose positive - other electronic manufacturers happened to chose negative. The two had very little to do with eachother in the beginning, and no need to worry about standards when they started out.
I would suspect (but I do not KNOW) that it was the radio that probably prompted the change to a negative ground in the auto world (which would carry over to the tractor world) - I would assume that's when the auto world really merged together with the electronics world.
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Today's Featured Article - Oil Bath Air Filters - by Chris Pratt. Some of us grew up thinking that an air filter was a paper thing that allowed air to pass while trapping dirt particles of a particles of a certain size. What a surprise to open up your first old tractor's air filter case and find a can that appears to be filled with the scrap metal swept from around a machine shop metal lathe. To top that off, you have a cup with oil in it ("why would you want to lubricate your carburetor?"). On closer examination (and some reading in a AC D-14 service manual), I found out that this is a pretty ingenious method of cleaning the air in the tractor's intake tract.
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