[AT] here I go again

[charlie hill]

Super A's are fine looking machines when brought back to their
original appearance.  I'm very fond of them.  Most tobacco farmers
in our area had a Super A and something like a N series Ford or
a Massey Ferguson 30 or 35.  When I was a small boy my dad ran
a service station to try to pay for the family farm when he bought it
from my uncle who bought it from the rest of the siblings when
granddaddy died.  We had tenant farmers and they had a mule and
an early AC B.  Daddy sold the station when I was 9 in 1959 and bought
a D-10 Allis to take over our farm.  I was old enough to help with the
serious work by then and we would have expanded and bought some
bigger equipment sooner or later but he died in the winter of 66.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ron Cook
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2014 2:21 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] here I go again

Charlie,
     Not much finish left on the little thing.  Someone did get a nice
red oxide primer coat on the hood and oil cap and painted the front
wheels black for some reason.  That is as far as they got.  A proper
paint job and the right decals, and it will be a right foxy looking
little tractor.  But, that isn't happening anytime soon.
     One row at a time and it is easy to see how these little tractors
have mostly been "used up".  A tremendous amount of hours consumed in
the seat, as you say.  A two-row outfit would get the same work done in
almost, but not quite, half the time.  I think the little tractors were
replacing a mule and was a big step up.  Here, the Regular replaced a
team of horses in the twenties and thirties. Two rows.  Larger
farmsteads and different crops.  The little tractors were chore tractors
and mostly consisted of N Fords.  My Granddad did quite a bit of farming
with a 9 N, but it was pretty much used up by the time it was 10 years
old, and it had a Regular, an M, and a John Deere B helping it.  A dairy
farm with about 400 acres of crop.  All those hours finished off my
Granddad by the time he was 63, too.  Died right beside that Ford
getting it ready to go to the field for another day of cultivating.

Ron Cook
Salix, IA
On 7/29/2014 7:58 PM, charlie hill wrote:
> Not seeing the tractor, I didn't know if it had an earlier "restoration"
> that
> might have the wrong decals.  Sounds like you have it figured out.  I've
> been
> around A's and Super A's all of my life but when that one was new I was
> almost
> new myself and don't remember the details.  I don't know where Al Jones is
> lately.
> He's the ATIS, small farmall expert.  I'm pretty sure he could tell you
> about the history
> of the shafts.
>
> You are right, tending big acreage one row at a time won't work today but
> you'd be
> surprised what we did with one row tractors in the S/E tobacco country. 
> My
> dad and
> I tended about 50 acres one year with a D-10 Allis with a 2 bottom 14" 
> plow
> and a 16
> blade disc harrow.  We spent a lot of time in the seat.   One of my 
> friends
> was the
> youngest son of a tenant farmer.  He had a Super A and a completely worn 
> out
> A.
> They tended close to 100 acres including about about 15 acres of tobacco.
> When it was
> time to break the tobacco ground with the bottom plows they worked in
> shifts, 24 hours a
> day until it was done.  The old man and 3 sons on two tractors.  The cost 
> of
> fuel and labor
> would make that impossible now particularly with gasoline powered 
> tractors.
>
> Charlie
>
>

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