[AT] Portland

[Indiana Robinson]

The last time we were at Portland I took my TO-20 Ferguson and several 3
point implements. I had not had that TO-20 long and had done almost nothing
to it. It didn't really need that much mechanically. I thought it would be
cool to show it like that then show it the next year all rewired etc. and
freshly painted. Weeeell... Still no new wiring, no new paint... I did
manage to get a new manifold on it. It is still running well and serves my
very limited needs of the moment. I'm quite fond of it and the way it
drives. I grew up using one that my father bought new in either 1948 or 49.
Rambling begins here:
His first tractor was a 1941 9N, bought new in early 1942. He had taken
over the family farm (about 80 acres) about 1940 after my grandfather's
heart started giving out (pretty much a death sentence in 1940 and he died
in 1943). There had never been a tractor on the farm except one borrowed in
neighbor work swaps now and then. My father hated horses enough that we
have not been able to grow grass on his grave ever since I moved in a batch
of horses some years ago.
He bought that 9N along with a plow, disk and cultivator all new and kept
adding implements through the war. He was supposed to get a new corn picker
too but when his became available someone with deep pockets got a new
picker and his had mysteriously disappeared from the dealer's lot. A lot of
that happened during the war time limit years.
He was only able to buy that much new stuff because he spent the duration
of the war testing aircraft engines at Allison Engineering in Indianapolis
12 hours a day, 7 days a week and farming. He only missed the day I was
born in 1942.
After the war a lot of stuff was in very short supply due to everything
being war production for so many years and also because so many GI's came
home with money carefully saved up to start farming. He wanted a second
tractor badly but they were really scarce at least in our area the first
year or two after the war. Many of the old tired ones had been scrapped
during the war, new ones had a waiting list. The used ones that were
available were selling for top dollar. He finally bought two McCormick
10-20's and dismantled them both and made one rebuilt tractor out of the
two. By the time he bought the new TO-20 Ferguson he was renting maybe
another 80 acres around the neighborhood and doing a fair amount of custom
work.
We moved to this farm in 1951 and were farming about 220 acres and he was
still doing some custom work for neighbors. In 1951 there were still a lot
of tiny farms from 10 to 60 acres and while some worked in town or as a
hired hand on bigger farms, on many they didn't work off of the farm. Some
were produce "truck patches" but many were pretty much bare existence
little farms with a handful of cows, a few pigs, a few sheep, maybe a goat
and of course chickens all over the place. A few still had a horse and
fewer yet had a small tractor. I don't recall ever seeing a mule in our
area but they were more common in the southern part of the state (Indiana).
In early 1954 the Ford Ferguson 9N was traded in on a new Ford Jubilee that
was still sitting on a dealer friend's show floor.
I have sort of a long term goal... OK, even us old falling apart guys have
to have long term goals... I have my TO-20 Ferguson. I have a couple of 8N
Fords. I would love to do a little buying / selling or what ever (I'm
already about 8 years over my old tractor allowance) to pick up a 9N Ford /
Ferguson and with some stretching, a Jubilee Ford. The 9N is a higher
priority than the Jubilee (but I still want one).
This would give me the basic Henry Ford / Harry Ferguson story in tractors.
It would be cool to show a 9N (the original venture), an 8N (Fords first
tractor after the break-up), the TO-20 (Harry Ferguson's first US tractor
after the break-up) and the Jubilee which was the first Ford tractor after
being forced by court order due to the lawsuit to change parts of the
design they were stealing from Ferguson).
I like the idea of having a story that you can show physically side by side
where all changes were made over the years.
Probably won't all happen this year buy you gotta have goals...  :-)

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Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com