Mark: Actually my experience with the W4 is quite limited, dad traded it off for an H when I was 9 years old. My first expereience with the W4 was pulling hay wagon with loose hay loader behind. The two guys building the loads of hay from the hayloader were complaining about my aging grandfather being just a bit too vicious on the clutch. One day in 1948 dad said to me, "Hugh you've got a job driving the W4 loading hay as long as those two guys on the load don't complain." His offer was a bit hollow, I don't think I made quite two years until I graduated to being one of the guys on the load and my brother became the tractor driver. I also operated the W4 a bit on a spring tooth cultivator. Not until he got the H in 51 did I get a chance to do any plowing, same 2x14 plow. In our soil dad claimed the H pulled the plow and other tillage implements better than the W4. that was eastern Canada with 45" annual rainfall where the soil was relatively soft. The 38" wheel definitely has an advantage in that situation. I believe if you go to the great western plains where flotation and traction were not a problem, the W series tractors had a distinct advantage, that being the smaller diameter wheel giving the same engine more torque and greater pulling power. Most folks will think of the W series as a great plains tractor, and the Farmall for row crops of the mid west. However as early as 1951 we were asking for wider tires on Farmalls, hoping to gain more flotation on our soft soils. It was common to see an H or M on duals. Two things changed, tile drainage and wider tires by 1957.
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