[AT] Cultivating potatoes

[charlie hill]

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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>
> _______________________________________________
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> 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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