Re: Farmall M - Which One?

Posted by LenRahilly on November 09, 2006 at 07:08:10 from (24.50.99.60):

In Reply to: Re: Farmall M - Which One? posted by Clarkbug on November 08, 2006 at 18:44:09:

Thanks for the kind words, Clarkbug. A really bigtime fruit and veg. farmer in NJ whom I knew (died recently, sad to say) used pretty much only the fairly-old stuff (Super A, Super M, JD B) because compared to new tractors they are incredibly cheap to buy. He had a mechanic who fixed them up and got them running well and looking good, probably for much less than the cost of a new tractor of comparable power. This was an operation that could profit from a number of what today seem like "small" tractors--cultivating veggies, hauling stuff in from the fields on wagons, etc. Doubt if this would make economic sense on the huge farms in the Midwest.
I grew up on 140 acres in NJ, but in my father's day, you could make a living by selling your milk and doing a LOT of things yourself (like growing vegs. and fruit for canning and underground storage; making butter and cottage cheese; raising chickens for eggs and meat, and for sale; likewise for hogs). In the 40s,farmers started using machines because there was no longer much manual labor available (wartime problem). Machines are expensive; this seems to have been the beginning of the need for lots of cash and consequently lots of acres (my tax acct. in a small country town in Mich. where I worked for some years told me 3000 acres was the minimum to make a decent living with crop farming, and a minimum of 300 cows on a dairy: we had 30!). Sorry, I'm off the track, but it is fascinating to look back on the way my parents and grandparents were able to make a living; couldn't do it today, I expect.
I tried to be objective about the M and SM, but underneath the coldhearted thinking, I really loved the old IH machinery, even the F-20 that I got bounced around on so much.

Replies:

• Re: Farmall M - Which One? Clarkbug 16:25:03 11/09/06 (0)

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