Old Time potato diggers

Lew near Waco, TX

Here's one that was sold. I should've had one years ago when I raised a lot of potatoes. I used my garden tractor to plow them out this year.
I had to rake after each furrow to uncover a lot of them. Hal

Causes me to ponder another point.....I wonder...how many good draft horses would it take to equal the pulling power of say a 75 horse tractor..low speed of course, in a dead pull. Go ahead and give the tractor 4 wd...the horses use all 4 feet!

Ok...back to tater diggers....that Oliver is exactly what I'd buy if the price was too high.....any idea what one like that would sell for?

I've never watched a team work....seen them of course, but so far as working..no.

I did see a yoke of oxen dragging saw logs. This pair were big brutes...probably 1800-2000 pounders. They had a saw log behind them that was at least 36" in diameter and probably 10 feet long. They walked away like it was a toothpick. They just mosied along like they were hooked to nothing! I have no idea what it weighed, but I was dumbfounded at the sheer power they had. Not built for speed...but brute strength!

70 acres of tobacco is a lot.....even with a tractor. I know there are folks down in the Bluegrass that raise several hundred acres..... which is akin to a bean farmer raising 6-8,000 acres of his crop. Tobacco is so labor intensive..... .I don't miss working in it one bit! I used to know old-timers who would farm 4 or 5 acres of tobacco with a horse or mule.....that seemed like a big crop to me for one feller to follow a farting mule all day long in the heat. Those old folks always wore bib overalls and a long sleeve shirt and a wide brimmed felt hat..... clothes that make me sweat just thinking about it. Then there was always a contest to see who could cut the most sticks in a day. The old folks wouldn't stand for none of this sloppy work where the tobacco fell over..no sir, you drove that stick and if it fell over, you set it back up. A good man could cut a thousand sticks and I have heard of some cutting more....but I have seen their work.....half the tobacco laying on the ground. My belly is too big and my back too worn out now to stoop and cut tobacco all day now. I'd be lucky to cut 300 sticks. Ain't nothing like walking those tier poles in the top of a barn during housing time is there! Only about 140 degrees up there..hehe! Nothing but brute work...don't miss any of it.

Some folks have deeper pockets than mine..or maybe just want something worse than I do. One hundred pounds of seed potatoes will make all the taters me and the extended family will use. I spent more money killing the damned bugs than the last crop of potatoes I raised, was worth. Like Lew in Waco said...it's just something to have because nobody else (in these parts) does.

I never was able to raise big spuds for some reason, but I had an old neighbor who used to raise some whoppers. I asked him once what his secret was...he said, "pour the fertilize to'em." I know he wasn't too scientific in his approach..but it worked. He used 19-19-19 and then side dressed with ammonia. I would have figured they would have been all vines by using that much nitrogen..but the tubers were huge and plentiful.