[AJD] Unusual looking Model L

J.R. Hobbs jrhobbs2004 at yahoo.com
Thu Sep 15 19:41:36 PDT 2005


 I don't think I was unduly harsh with my remarks. God knows I've made some rather large and obvious mistakes in my work over the years, and I'd like to think I've been man enough to admit it when I did. Some have been typos, some just plain dumb mistakes on my part, and some because I just didn't have as good a grasp of the facts as I should have had. Some mistakes were because I later found out that things that had been accepted as "facts" actually weren't, and I've tried to correct them as best I could. Nobody knows it all, or even a significant percentage of what there is to be known in this hobby.  Some of you guys have heard me say: "Anybody who tells you that they are an expert about anything in this hobby will lie to you about other things."  There are people out there that I consider to be experts in their field, but to a man they will tell you that they learn something new every day---- primarily because they've made mistakes, too---that's how most of us learn. 
 
It's true I don't have much patience with some of the book offerings about JD tractors from one publisher in particular, some ( but not all) of whose authors merely copy and rearrange the work of others, add pretty pictures, and pass it off as their own work, and who wouldn't know what real research was if it bit them in the butt. I don't mind so much that some of my work and the work of others who have done actual research has been copied, but it does irk me a bit when they copy it and still get it wrong.  I've gotten things wrong, too, but it wasn't for lack of trying to get it right---I don't know how many dollars I've spent over the years buying research materials, but I'm sure it's in five figures.
 
However, in this particular case, I don't think the author of the article did much in the way of research, or cross-checking to find out if he had the facts or not. He found the local "expert", and took his story as fact. The verifiable facts about the Model "L" and its predecessors are not difficult to come by, as they've been published several times, and are easily obtainable. As I said before, I have little doubt that the man mentioned in the article might well have had some input on the design, as some of the Model "Y" experimental tractors were tested in that general area. But, to credit him with the design of the tractor I think is misleading.
 
 
 
 


Dean VP <deanvp at att.net> wrote:
I too agree with JR's desire to have all authors publishing accurate data.
However, there are those in the publishing field who consider themselves the
"correct police" who criticize other publisher's mistakes when they
themselves have dirty linen. One needs to be careful how critical one
becomes unless one is dealing from a reference of perfection. I know of no
author who has published anything w/o significant errors. The desire to get
those errors corrected in a timely matter is more important to me that the
fact the errors occurred to begin with. 

Dean A. Van Peursem
Snohomish, WA 98290

Forbidden fruits create many jams!

www.deerelegacy.com

http://members.cox.net/classicweb/email.htm



-----Original Message-----





More information about the AT mailing list