My father had 2 Hs, one K-D engine (we used gas), one gas. In our medium-heavy, somewhat clayey soil in central NJ, both tractors had plenty to do with a 2-12" Little Genius. I never tried the double 14" plow that had come with my father's 10-20, because the Hs seemed to be working at capacity. The H has enough horsepower, theoretically, but it has a very small engine compared to the F-20 or 10-20 it was supposed to replace (about 152 cubic inches, versus 221 and 284 inches for the other tractors). The horsepower comes from speed: the little engine is a bit like a small man on a bicycle going up hill--you put the bike in low and pedal fast. A cyclist with muscle could go up the same hill in a higher gear and pedalling more slowly. The older tractors didn't run very fast, but they had the muscle that came from the cubes. There are probably engineering explanations for the original designs, but I'd guess that the early engineers didn't trust the primitive splash lube systems and so didn't dare run the engines fast. Anyway, the end result of the H being a "2-plow tractor" with an engine that was not too much bigger than that of an F-14 was that it pulled just fine as long as the engine speed could be kept up, but it was easy to pull down with an overload. A side remark: Early brochures for tractors often talked of "plowing speed," which was usually second in a three-speed tractor, and second was usually around 3 or 3.25 mph, which is just about the speed where a "2-plow tractor" with around 15 or so max h.p. at the drawbar can pull 2-14s. The H was certainly designed with second gear as the "plowing speed," since it was a design of the late 30s AND was available on steel wheels right from the factory. Incidentally, the F-20 and 10-20 ON STEEL would not pull two plows faster than about 3 mph, either. I remember vividly trying to plow in third with our steel-wheeled 10-20. So much power was wasted through those lugs that no heavy work could be done in third. I also remember an F-20 and a "Regular" that I often used, both on rubber, and they would plow at 4 mph. The rubber wasted so much less power that you were getting about 30% more ground speed. Hard as H...on your backside, but man! could those things work when converted. I enjoyed the remarks about check-rowed corn. I used to cross-cultivate with an F-12, until my father decided in the early 40s that check-row just took too much time and he began to "sow" the corn, which meant no more cross-cultivating, but there were probably a few more weeds in between the stalks. In a very old brochure I have for the original Farmall, there is a whole page devoted to the "square turn" that the Farmall was designed for--that's why it has those powerful automatic turning brakes. I studied the brochure and pictures and somehow learned to make the square turn through the corn. Soon the neighbors were noticing that the little squirt next door wasn't knocking any corn down. I didn't learn this until I had grown up and left the farm. Good thing, I guess, to keep my head from swelling up too early (I've been called a "fat head" more recently, but I don't know where that swelled-up ego came from).
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Today's Featured Article - Identifying Tractor Noises - by Curtis Von Fange. Listening To Your Tractor : Part 3 - In this series we are continuing to learn the fine art of listening to our tractor in hopes of keeping it running longer. One particularly important facet is to hear and identify the particular noises that our
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