[AT] Mowing

[Indiana Robinson]

On Sun, May 3, 2015 at 8:52 AM, <jtchall at nc.rr.com> wrote:

> Farmer my dad had that discussion with me when I was in high school. I
> wanted to be a grain farmer (corn, barley, wheat and soybeans). I didn't
> want to mess with tobacco, which is what basically everyone here did back
> then. Dad told me to start figuring it out on paper to see if I thought I
> could make a go of it. Starting with nothing there was no way I could come
> up with the money to make a go of it---we just don't get the yields here
> that the major grain growing regions do. That's when he told me it was all
> his mother could do in the late 40's and early 50's to buy a Farmall M and
> pull type Allis combine, he didn't see how I could make payments on a
> $85,000 combine like his brother was.
>
> By the way, I asked him about the lawnmower prices yesterday and he said he
> paid $895 for the 110 Deere. I haven't looked online to verify what they
> sold for but he did go on to say it was and would be the only new one he
> bought.
>
>
> John Hall
>
>
>
My father got his start farming due largely to WW-II. He was not in the
service, he had tried to enlist but they wouldn't take him (later in the
war they might have). He spent the full length of the war testing aircraft
engines working for what was then Allison Engineering in Indy 12 hours a
day, 7 days a week and farming at the same time.
He was making more per hour than average and with all of those hours he
bought a new 1941 9N Ford Ferguson and a basic set of implements in 1942.
He had taken over his parents farm just before the war due to my
grandfather's bad heart. My grandfather had never owned a tractor, just
horses. My father had to acquire implements too since many horse implements
would not convert that well. My father disliked horses and wanted them
gone. After the war he was renting some ground and needed a second tractor
but they were harder to get due to pent up demand and even the better used
stuff was selling high because so many young guys came back from the war
and had saved money to by tractors and equipment. He bought 2 old McCormick
10-20's and made one good one out of them and some new parts. He didn't buy
another used tractor until I guess the 1960's. He bought a new Ferguson
TO-20 about 1948 or 49 followed by a new 1953 Jubilee Ford (traded in the
9N) then a new Massey Ferguson 65-D High-arch about 1961. It was replaced
about 1971 with a  new MF-165-D High-arch.
About the early 1960's we bought the 1946 Allis Chalmers C that a good
family friend had bought new. We bought it at the auction after he passed
and his descendants have been trying to buy it back ever since.
Then we bought the 1947 Farmall CUB for mowing fence rows in the mid 1960's.
About then we bought the Farmall Super M to go under a New Idea mounted
corn picker and rebuilt it with an oversized piston and sleeve set and a
high performance governor. We used it a couple of years for that until I
stumbled across my Farmall Super MTA at a good price and we rebuilt it the
same way. We bought it for the independent PTO and the Torque Amplifier for
shifting on the go.
When we first bought the mounted picker and the first Farmall M it was with
the plan to fix the tractor up the best we could and just leave the picker
mounted. We planned to put it up on blocks over the winter and only use it
for picking but that plan ran into a snag... After the rebuild we just
liked using it.
:-)
We never did leave the picker mounted in the non-picking seasons.
Then we bought the Farmall 400-LP, just because...
:-)
Then I bought the MM-R that an uncle had bought new (it has been to
Portland). After that a number of tractors came and went as I got into the
buying and selling business for a few years. Now I can't seem to let go of
anything...
Since then I have added my 1948 John Deere A. My Case VAC. A Massey Harris
Pony. Two 8N Fords. A Farmall F-30. Farmall F-12. An Allis WC.
I guess that is everybody...
All need something, some need almost everything.
:-)
Over the years my father bought 5 new tractors. I on the other hand have
never bought a new one. I just never could make the sharp end of a pencil
say that I could justify one on a small operation... With a few hundred
acres more ground? Probably.


-- 

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