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It wasn't easy, I can tell you. Dad bought his first tractor, a 1943 John Deere B, along with a 1-16" No. 51 plow, two-row cultivator and a one-row No. 10 corn picker in 1943. He made do with the horse-drawn implements that could be modified for use behind a tractor. He used the last team of Percherons until 1956. We farmed 215 acres on three different places and raised a lot of hogs for that time...in the early '50s, we were raising 400 hogs from farrow to finish every year. Major purchases were generally made right after the 1st of March each year, for two reasons. One, we had usually just sold half of our hog crop (the fall farrow) and had some ready cash, and, two, there was a personal property tax on any machinery on hand as of March 1st...so, we waited until tax day had passed. A couple of years ago I ran across some old Farm Account Books of his from 1937, 1942 and 1953. The inventory of equipment was kept for depreciation purposes, but was pretty minimal until the late '40s, when he bought a new '49 A, two-row No. 200 cultivator,a No. 44H 2-14" plow and a No. 200 two-row picker. The total initial purchase price for all the equipment in use at the time was $13,642, but I'm not sure what the depreciated value was. Some of the equipment went back to the mid-'30s.
Stan Huff
Melbourne, FL (formerly Noblesville, Indiana)
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