Re: Question about tractors

Posted by Dave Olson on December 13, 2003 at 18:31:37 from (24.171.102.53):

In Reply to: Question about tractors posted by Jones on December 12, 2003 at 20:53:46:

-I wrote this about the time I bought my 1st tractor last year. This was my attempt to explain to myself and others why I would buy old tractors! I will also try to post a picture of 3 of my tractors. You see after getting the H last year, I decided to get an example of all the tractors that we had on the farm when I was a kid! Keep in mind I live in town, and no land to work this equipment!

“You can take the boy off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy!”

I caught a little glimpse of it when I was driving in town one day a month or so ago. I was in a hurry to an appointment and then forgot about it. A week or so later I noticed it again and it looked like the old tractor we had on the farm when I was a kid. The next time I went by I noticed a sign tied to the front of the tractor. A week or so later I had more time so I stopped to check it out!

The sign was a For Sale sign $1500. At first I didn’t think it was an “H” even though the letter was on the hood. I though it was too small to be an “H” could they have put the wrong ID on it! This is when the memories of being on the farm started coming back. I have not been around an “H” and have not been involved with farming either for over 45 years. Obviously the reason the “H” looked so small to me now was I was only 10 to 12 years old when most of these memories were made. I will be 60 later this year.

We were city farmers; my dad was a painting and plastering contractor. We moved from Los Angeles to northern Illinois in 1952, I was 9 years old. We moved to a farm (120 acres) just outside of Elgin about a year after coming to Illinois. Most farms in this area at that time were small and had dairy herds.

My dad wanted to do things as he had done when he was young and living on a farm. We had chickens, pigs, sheep; cattle and even had a goat when I was in 4H and FFA. We had about 80 acres of tillable land for corn, oats, and soybeans. Had about 20 acres of timothy/alfalfa hay and another 20 acres or so of permanent pasture. Very hilly land and had peat in the low-lying areas.

One year my dad got a bundler to put up one of our cornfields. It was a one-row pull behind machine. It would cut the stalks just above the ground, gather several together and it used bailing twine to secure it and toss the bundle on the ground. Later we came back and picked up the bundles and put them on their end and leaned them together. Looked kind of like a teepee. Later dad had a fellow come in with a thrashing machine and chopped all of it up and put it in the upper part of the hay moue. Sure was a lot of hard work!

The barn on this farm was set up for a dairy. One hundred foot long and it had stanchions for the cows, box stalls on the end for calves. Large hay moue and bins for storing grain for the cattle. This was before bulk pick up of milk so the milk house had the open top concrete tanks filled with cold water to keep the cans of milk cold until the truck picked the cans up.

The reason I lump all of these memories together when I look at my “H” (I bought it last week!) is we used this tractor to do most all of the work. We also had an old Case that was converted from steel wheels to rubber, but the old “H” did most of the work. But the Case was stronger pulling the plow (2-14’s or 16’s) and disking. All of the control levers were hand operated (no foot pedals)!!

We had a sickle mower to cut the hay for baling. We had a two-row cultivator and a two-row corn picker (picked corn by the ear). All of these mounted on the “H”. The picker was way too much equipment for this tractor to operate! We would put a belt on the flywheel on the right side and run a hammer mill to grind grain for the cattle. The power take off could run the elevator that we used to run the bales of hay up into the barn. The same elevator was used to put the ear corn into the corncrib.

Dad’s been gone now for over 20 years. I think he would approve of me buying this old “H” even though I really have no real use for it! We have room to keep it inside and as time and money permit I will try to bring it back to what it once was just to keep the memories alive!

Dave Olson - East-Central Illinois

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