[AT] here I go again

[charlie hill]

I'm sure that rig is a tough ride but it wouldn't be my first rough ride!
I'd just love to have a disc hooked to something with that much power
one time in my life after growing up pulling a 16 blade disc harrow and
having to go over a field 3 or 4 times to get it flat enough to put a
breaking plow in.

All of our planters, even the old horse drawn ones had curved plates
(shoes) on the back of them to pack the furrows some sort of device
to pack the row.   If I remember the old ones right there was a sort of a 
chisel called an
opener that cut the furrow for the seed, then the planter dropped the seed 
in
the furrow and there were two curved metal shoes that closed the furrow and
then 2 metal wheels mounted more or less like the front wheels on a steel 
wheeled
tricycle tractor behind that.  Those wheels powered the planter plates.  I 
might  not have
that in the right order.  The shoes might have been in the rear.

It amazes me how far farming has come both in terms of equipment and 
science.
I occasionally tune in to AG PhD program on RFDTV.  I wish I had every 
episode of it
on file somewhere.  I wish I had stayed on the farm but when my dad died it 
became
difficult and no one encouraged me.  I've always regretted not giving it a 
try.  The
friends I grew up with that did stick it out are very well off today.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ron Cook
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2014 10:10 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] here I go again

Charlie,
     I wouldn't walk across the yard to drive that thing if it had to do
with working it.  Noisy, rough riding thing.  Tough, though. This one
has a Cat 3406 @ around 325 hp for power.  only used for spring tillage
work.
     I don't do any farming myself.  I just grew up on it.  my dad used
me as cheap help until I left for college in 1961.  My last actual
farming work there was corn harvest of 1967.  Since then I just help now
and then when I have time which is very seldom.  My youngest 1/2 brother
inherited the farm and operation and his two sons are doing the farming
these days.
     The corn packing job I mentioned is driving the tractor's wheels on
the planted rows.  Not straddling them, so the tread width needed to be
not more than 40 inches.   And of course, a wide front is necessary.
Another scarcity in these parts back in those days. About the only
tractors around these parts with wide fronts were Allis WC & WD and the
N Fords.  I think the Super A and A Farmall only gets in to 44 inches.
Too wide.  There is more than likely a way to get them in narrow enough,
but apparently the farmers of the time were not interested in that and
just went with the tractors that were 40 inches and used fairly narrow
tires.  The Allis B was perfect, and there are still many in the area.
They now have a mower under the belly.
     Just this spring, my afore mentioned brother told his sons they
needed to pack their sweetcorn to get it to come up even.  They looked
at him like he was talking a foreign language.  I got a good laugh out
of that.  They plant some of their sweetcorn with an old two-row John
Deere planter and the seeds were mostly in dry soil. He took the old
John Deere M off the grain auger it was powering and drove it on about
1/2 of their sweetcorn.  Packing corn.   It took about ten minutes.
That part of the patch emerged sooner and more even than the rest of the
patch and is currently being eaten.  Not so, the balance.  Those boys
are still scratching their heads over that one and I am still
chuckling.  Their hundred thousand and some dollar Kinze planter does
the same thing with air controlled packer wheels.  I don't think those
kids realize just what all that planter is doing for them.

Ron Cook
Salix, IA
On 7/30/2014 5:46 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> Ron,  I'd go out there and work  for you for free for a couple of days
> if that work was driving that Steiger!
>
> As for the width of the B's, I didn't mean to sound argumentative
> before but I'm fascinated by what you say about the width of a B
> compared to a A or Super A.   Tobacco was always tended on 48" rows
> as far as I know and the B's fit 48's just fine in standard width.
> I've got two worn out old B's in my bone yard,  U guess I need to do
> some measuring.
>
> Charlie
>



_______________________________________________
AT mailing list
http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at