[AT] Massey Harris

[Indiana Robinson]

>
>
> Belt work was a big part of this marketing, and here in the mid-atlantic
> one of those belt jobs was filling silo.  I recall and old timer friend
> telling me stories about farmers getting together to help each other fill
> silo.  Part of this activity involved trying to feed the chopper/blower
> fast enough to bog down each other's tractors.  Of course there were
> bragging rights if your tractor held up and could not be bogged down...
>
>

A neighbor had been filling silos with an Allis blower and a 9N Ford. He
had an old WC but it was on its last legs and really tired. The Ford was
more recently rebuilt. Then he hocked everything in sight and had a big
blue Harvestor put up... It was so tall the Ford would only blow it all of
the way up was to feed it silage with a spoon. He had a newish Oliver but
it was running the chopper. The old Allis was pulling the wagons. He
finally bought a Farmall F-30 from his uncle and it would blow it to the
top without any problems. As a kid I really enjoyed listening to that old
F-30 blowing that silage. Then the F-30 started giving him problems. He had
it worked on a few times but nobody could figure it out. He stuck it in a
little barn and walked away from it. Last I recall he was using a Ferguson
TO-30 to run the blower. It was about then that he quit farming. That F-30
sat in that little barn from about 1959 or so until about 10 years ago I
guess and the little barn had fallen in on it and the rear wheels had sunk
about 16" into the ground. He finally pulled it out and burned the little
barn and the F-30 sat there some more. One day I was chatting with him and
asked him if he would sell it. He shot me a kind of high price and I said
that I didn't want to put that in it and we kept talking about all sorts of
stuff but nothing more about the F-30. One day sometime later he dropped by
to tell me that they were leaving for Florida because I generally watched
their house while they were gone. After we chatted a few minutes he said
"If you still want that old tractor why don't you just go ahead and load it
up".
It has been sitting here about like yard art since and I haven't done
anything with it yet except to take a little bad stuff off of it but I did
find why it would not run right. The old exhaust manifold had started
crumbling and it was naturally a heating type manifold (2 fuel). The intake
tube had cracked inside of the heater part so it had been sucking exhaust
into the intake part of the manifold. Not a good thing.
:-)
I keep squirting a little oil here and there. Maybe if I get enough other
stuff done I will get to it next winter or the following spring. I have a
place in the shop where I won't have to move too much stuff to put it in
when I am ready. Meanwhile it needs a new tarp. It's kind of special to me,
the neighbor is gone and so is his wife.
BTW, the Harvestore is still there... He once told me that he would make
somebody a real deal on it and the feeding shed, then he chuckled.
:-)


-- 

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