[AT] been collecting a long time

jtchall at nc.rr.com jtchall at nc.rr.com
Sun Aug 24 05:17:47 PDT 2014


It occurred to me this week just how long we’ve been collecting old iron, 30 years give or take a year. Started when I was in 7th or 8th grade. When we started it was small items like 2 man chainsaws, Briggs engines from the 40’s and 50’s, and horse drawn equipment---at the time these items were really cheap or free. We quickly progressed to tractors and belt powered machinery.

One of the earliest items we rescued from a fencerow was a horse drawn riding cultivator. It was all there, just frozen with rust and the wheels were bent where someone had nudged it sideways with a scrape blade to push it out of the way. The day we brought it home was about 30 degrees. I drove one of the 4020’s with a boom pole to go get it (and a stalk cutter) while dad drove one of the grain trucks. If you’re trying to picture the boom pole it is basically the same thing as the little ones you can buy for utility tractors except this one is heavy enough to lift the front end of the the 10,000lb tractor it is hooked to off the ground. We’ve also got a hydraulic center link for it. Anyway we got it home, heated, hammered, and oiled until it was operational. We made a tongue for it that required a little ingenuity and a broken shank off of a chisel plow. We would use it on occasion to plow the garden. We even raised a few rows of snap beans one year using it and a 10-20 McCormick on steel. I still haven’t figured out how dad laid the rows off straight given the slop in the steering on that tractor. We continued using it for close to 10 years and then retired it again after we quit raising so much garden. It was towed to the back of the farm and backed up under some trees where it rested for the next 20 years.

This past week I decided it would be handy to have up here at my house. The wildlife pressure is so great here everyone has to fence in their garden with 6-8 ft fencing. I’m not going to do that so I’ll just plant what the critters won’t eat, squash, zucchini, and sweet corn (I forgot, the squirrels cleaned me out on that as well). I borrowed my cousins tractor with cultivators and laid off a couple rows for some late squash. It’s not worth the effort for us to keep cultivators on a tractor any more. I remembered how handy this horse drawn cultivator was so it was time to rescue it again. Same tractor, same boom pole, (same guy driving the tractor) 30 years later, we retrieved it from the weeds and briars again. Back to the same shop. This time it only took a couple evenings to get it running. Had to replace the wooden tongue, and free up one major part with the torch (same as 30 years ago) and we were back in business. Plowed my garden Fri. night and it did an outstanding job. I’ll put some fertilizer around it this week and try to plow it one more time. Should have squash and zucchini until frost.

It just occurred to me the incentive to get this cultivator operational 30 years ago. Back then both of our Super A’s spent most of the spring and summer at the other farm 2 miles away. The only time they came home was for plowing gardening. If you wanted to plow garden you had to go get one. And once tobacco had been laid by, you’d have to put the cultivators on once you got here, plow the garden, take the cultivators off, and get the tractor back to the other farm, generally all in the same evening. 

Maybe I can find a shed to keep it under for the next 30 years. Until next week, its sitting in the corner of my yard, backed up under a tree. Don’t worry, my better half won’t let it sit there long.

John Hall



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