[AT] gravely sickle mower

[Indiana Robinson]

	In these days of high fuel prices sickle mowers can be 
thought of as fuel savers. I do have a Gravely sickle mower 
attachment (that I want to keep)...   :-)    and of course 
the Gravely engine pulls it very easily. I also have a 
David Bradley sickle mower that fits my 1947 DB tractor. 
That tractor also pulled the sickle mower easily but that 
was only a one and a half HP engine. I have been doing more 
sickle mower mowing lately since fuel  went up. Son  Scott 
bought a New Idea Cut/conditioner a year or so ago and it 
does a great job on most hay but it really pulls hard. 
Sucks a lot of the fuel through an 80 HP tractor. The same 
goes for a simple bush-hog  type mower. A 5' bush-hog 
really pulls the gizzard out of a 25 - 30 HP range tractor 
(like the Ford N's or Ferguson TO's) in tall stuff. 
Tractors of less than 20 HP will handle a 6' sickle bar 
with no problem.
	It is funny how high priced gas makes you rethink a lot of 
simple things that we used to just do without thinking. It 
is hard to remember that it was not really that many years 
ago that gas was under a buck a gallon... Back then I was 
farming bigger than I am now and doing some excavating work 
and my fuel bill was well over $3,000 for the year just for 
that. Today that would be about $10,000 in fuel... Yeah, I 
am looking at things differently.   :-)
	I keep tossing the fuel receipts for this year in the shoe 
box. I'm not sure I really want to add them up...   :-)


-- 
"farmer"
Hewick Midwest

The master in the art of living makes little distinction 
between his 
work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and 
his body, 
his information and his recreation, his love and his 
religion. He 
hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision 
of 
excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide 
whether he 
is working or playing. To him he's always doing both. 
 ~ James A. Michener, attributed

Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson at svs.net