[AT] Tractor Weight (now Ramble - LONG)

[Robert McBride]

Greg, your story from the past brought back a lot of memories for me. We
had a neighbour that used to thresh for us and many others in the area
with a WK40 and a George White 36" x 50" threshing machine. My memory of
the outfit only goes back to the mid forties but the story went about
how when this outfit was new, 4 men pitched into the feeder and couldn't
stop it. Obviously the machine would do a better job of separating with
only 2 men feeding. When I was a little older I had a chance to feed the
machine several times.
I don't recall what happened to the threshing machine in the end but
they kept the WK40 on the farm until the mid 60s or so.
Back in those days too, there seemed to be more snow in the winter and
they had a homemade snow plow for the tractor. It was made mostly from
wood with steel cutting edge. They had some way to attach to the front
of the tractor, with a steel beam running back underneath the tractor
and attached to the drawbar. There was no way to lift the plow off the
ground, so they had to use a little care when plowing deep snow or they
would be stuck. I don't remember seeing any wheel weights on the
tractor. I assume the tires were loaded and they always used a heavy set
of chains for traction.
I don't believe they ever used more than a 3 bottom plow on the farm. In
fact they only farmed 150 acres.
Another neighbor had 2 WD 40s that he worked quite large farm with and
had a 5 bottom plow for each one. ( IH Ace bottom probably) they were
popular around that area. In fact there was a good IH dealer in the area
for many years.
Some might say those were the good old days, well now I wouldn't jump up
and down and say that. ;)

Robert McBride retired on the Rideau and glad of it.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Greg Hass" <gkhass at avci.net>
To: <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 12:51 PM
Subject: [AT] Tractor Weight (now Ramble - LONG)


> as illustrated by what a neighbor (not long since deceased) had told
me.
> At the time Michigan law required that someone had to be sitting on
the
> tractor whenever the thrashing machine was running in case someone
fell
> in.  Many times that was my grandfather, who always smoked a pipe and
was
> known as quite a "thinker".  According to the story, the machine
> plugged.  However, it didn't phase the tractor.