[AT] Old Co-op from my album

[Greg Hass]

Does anyone use disk tillers anymore? What were they used for? I always 
thought they were a dryland farming type of machinery used to stop wind 
erosion. Someone also told me they were used in shallow soils as the 
underlying rock would destroy a regular plow. I know little about them. The 
guy that used to own this farm had  one; it had five or six blades as I 
remember. I was very young at the time, but have since hear stories about 
it. They are not a machine common to this area; I have seen only one other. 
Anyway, this guy read a book called " Plowman's Folly" and bought into it's 
ideas 100%. He went out and bought this disk tiller, an 8 ft. field 
cultivator, and a 8 ft. disk (no wheels). I guess the idea was to leave 
most trash on top of the ground. This was in the days of M's and Super M's. 
However, the only tractor he had was an all fuel unstyled John Deere of 
about 25 hp. It was a complete failure. Not only did his equipment go too 
shallow, he could not pull it fast enough to throw the dirt. Also, at that 
time there were no sprays, so weeds took over all his crops. Today, 50 
years later he would be right in style with chiesl plows going a foot deep 
and field cultivators that can handle the trash; as well as tractors that 
can pull this equipment at over 5 mph breaking up the soil and throwing it. 
When I was a kid everyone had a field in summer fallow. However now with 
sprays, I haven't seen any summer fallow in over 30 years. The only time I 
see an unplanted field is if someone is going to tile, pick rocks, 
landlevel, and maybe clean up some fence rows. By the way; this guy never 
changed his ways and never made any money farming. As a young man, he 
inheirted SP? several hundred acres of land from his dad, an excellent 
farmer (before my time) ; and throughout his life would sell some
  of it every few years to raise money. In fact, my dad's farm was bought 
from him. I bought this farm from him when he was in his 70's and had to 
move to a warmer climate for health reasons; it was the last of the several 
hundred acres.
Greg Hass
Michigan