If you have heavy black soils in your part of Iowa like we plowed in Grundy Co. years ago and you plowed thru "muck and sometimes mud" in the springtime, you are in for a hard year of farming that land, I'm afraid.
You might end up with a very hard, lumpy, cloddy field when it dries. Fall plowing always resulted in better soil conditions with those heavy soils.
Maybe check your plow for alignment; the rear landside should be running "off" the furrow wall about 1/4" to decrease friction. The trailing wheel can be adjusted for this; have someone drive the tractor slowly so you can walk alongside and watch the plow. Also, the bottom of the rear moldboard should not be leaving hard "skid marks" on the bottom of the furrow; you can adjust that with the verticle bolt on the tail wheel assembly. These adjustments made a great difference with my 2-16" #8; I pull it with an "H" and it was like giving the tractor extra power after those adjustments. The trailing wheel has a lot to do with proper performance. I got this advice from the #8 operator's manual I have.
With a properly adjusted plow, your M should pull 3-14" quite easily; with 3-16" it can be done if your soil is "fit" and you have fluid in the tires or at least one set of weights. You should be able to move along nicely in 2nd gear.
Forget about that 4-14"; your M is what is called a "Three plow tractor". Plowing is not just pulling a plow with brute force, it's pulling a plow that is adjusted for the task it is designed for.
Please don't take this as a lecture. Plowing with a properly adjusted plow in soil that is ready for plowing is a real pleasure. I always say "Listening to a 4 cylinder Farmall pulling a plow is like the singing of angels"
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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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