[AT] Cultivating potatoes

Fri Feb 24 05:02:01 PST 2006

I guess I should be going to some sales this spring.  So far I haven't had 
time.

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Al Jones" <aljones at ncfreedom.net>
To: "'Antique tractor email discussion group'" 
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 9:36 PM
Subject: RE: [AT] Cultivating potatoes

> Charlie, I saw a pretty good two row cultivator sell at an auction a few
> weeks ago for less than $200.  At the same sale I bought some of the
> spider gangs for one for $15.
>
> Al
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
> [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of charlie hill
> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 8:43 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Cultivating potatoes
>
> Hi Al,
>
> I bet you've walked behind the tractor and uncovered leaves with a stick
>
> haven't you?  LOL.  Maybe not because a few years back farmers realized
> that
> those sand lugs weren't worth uncovering but when I was a little fellow
> it
> was a different story.
>
> I wish I could find some good 2 row equipment including a set of rolling
>
> cultivators.  Most of the farmers in Craven County went to  big
> equipment
> years ago and all of that stuff is long gone.  As of this week I think
> there
> are 6 or 7 tobacco farmers left in the whole county.  Some of the guys
> took
> the buyout and are trying to make a living farming corn and soy beans.
> It
> won't take them long to figure out that won't work (in Craven Co. NC).
> Then
> folks with small farms like ours will be faced with leasing the land to
> turf
> farmers, growing trees or vinyl boxes (tract houses) or going back to
> farming themselves just to pay the taxes and keep the land.  That's why
> I
> figure I need to find some good 2 row stuff.
>
> Charlie
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Al Jones" <aljones at ncfreedom.net>
> To: "'Antique tractor email discussion group'"
> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 5:52 PM
> Subject: RE: [AT] Cultivating potatoes
>
>
>> Rolling cultivators are among my favorite tillage tools.  With tobacco
>> fading out, they're getting cheap as dirt around here.   I have fond
>> memories of Granddaddy of a set of them on the front of a Farmall 230
> in
>> soybeans and young corn.
>>
>> The 'layby sweeps' or 'buzzard wings' are usually known as "tobacco
>> plows" around here. They work really good on a crop on a raised bed,
> and
>> will roll the dirt up over the entire bed, and do it gently so you
> don't
>> cover up the crop (as easily).
>>
>> Al
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
>> [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of charlie
> hill
>> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 4:29 PM
>> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
>> Subject: Re: [AT] Cultivating potatoes
>>
>> When I went from one row plows on an Allis D-14 to 2 rows with a
> rolling
>>
>> cultivator behind a Massey Furgeson 30 ( my uncle's tractor) it was
> like
>>
>> getting out of a shool bus and getting in a sports car.
>>
>> Charlie
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Bob Seith" <seithr at denison.edu>
>> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group"
>> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 11:57 AM
>> Subject: [AT] Cultivating potatoes
>>
>>
>>> All this discussion about different types of cultivators has reminded
>> me
>>> how fussy we were about cultivating potatoes back home. Hilling
>> potatoes
>>> was certainly one operation, but by no means the only one. Lots of
>> other
>>> work was done throughout the season.
>>>
>>> We had a tiny homemade rotary cultivator that fit in the front gangs
>> of
>>> the Farmall A. It had only three spiked wheels that sort of resembled
>>> small versions of these:
>>>
>>> http://www.ent.iastate.edu/Imagegal/misc/rotaryhoe.html
>>>
>>> It was used to break the crust if you got heavy rains after planting
>> and
>>> before emergence. Ran it right down the middle of the row, obviously
>> held
>>> so as to go rather shallow. Go too deep, and you'd throw the potatoes
>>> right out of the ground.
>>>
>>> After emergence, there was a "potato weeder" that started life as a
>> piece
>>> of horse-drawn equipment but eventually moved over to a three-point
>> hitch
>>> mount. Again, you had to be careful using it, but it would tease out
> a
>> lot
>>> of weeds.
>>>
>>> Most actual hilling was done with disk blades mounted in the front
>>> cultivator gangs. But later in the season, just before the vines died
>> down
>>> and made further cultivating impossible, we ran through the fields
> one
>>
>>> last time with only rear cultivators mounted. These looked like
>> miniature
>>> middlebuster plows -- maybe 10 inches wide -- and would make the old
>>> Farmall boil on a hot day. But they threw a lot of sandy loam around!
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Bob Seith
>>> 1953 Farmall Cub
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> AT mailing list
>>> Remembering Our Friend Cecil Monson 11-4-2005
>>> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
>>>
>>>
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>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> AT mailing list
>> Remembering Our Friend Cecil Monson 11-4-2005
>> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> AT mailing list
>> Remembering Our Friend Cecil Monson 11-4-2005
>> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
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>>
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> 2/22/2006
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>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AT mailing list
> Remembering Our Friend Cecil Monson 11-4-2005
> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AT mailing list
> Remembering Our Friend Cecil Monson 11-4-2005
> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
>
>
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