Paws Old Tractor

 

My grandfather had an old Farmall IH 140 tractor as I was growing up as a child. It was a gasoline powered tractor. Gear Drive like my little Mahindra that I have now. I think he bought it when I was only 2 years old, traded in his old Farmall A.  It is not a huge tractor. It only weighs slightly over a ton and only a whopping 23 horsepower. I have an Emax 22 horsepower tractor so I am in the same ballpark. The big difference between the Mahindra and the Farmall is that it was set up as a high crop model for cultivation. The cultivators were right under your feet so you could cultivate close to the rows.

That is a big difference from my Mahindra. I have to turn around and look behind me in order to see what is going on. It is always an effort to look back, look forward, adjust driving, etc. The Farmall was perfect for this type of cultivation. You just had to look down. The one drawback to using the Farmall was that it was very top heavy. This meant that you just couldn’t take it on a hill or you would be taking your life into you own hands. It was at least a full 20 inches taller than my Mahindra for cultivating taller crops.  It was two wheel drive and had a pto and mower attachment. That mower would cut off anything that the tractor could ride over. But like mine the mower was only 4 feet wide.

Paw had them put the weights on for the tires while I opted to have my tires fluid filled instead. My tractor has four wheel drive and is lower to the ground so I can work more comfortably on the hilly ground we have. I am still leery of working the tractor on our hills. The day you don’t get leery is the day you mess up and turn over.

In the community I grew up in there were not a lot of folks with tractors. So every spring the Farmall was the community’s way of getting their gardens plowed. I bet that tractor has been in more gardens in Appalachia than most. In the spring it made money plowing for people. It had an 18 inch bottom plow and a 5 ft drop disk. Then it had a set of layoff plows that were put on just behind the back wheels so that the distance between rows was exactly the same distance as between the tires.

Now that bottom plow was a heavy thing. There was no budging it once you set it down. It probably weighed 400 pounds and if you didn’t set the foot and let it fall over when you put it down you were in trouble to get it back up. The disk was a lot the same except it probably weighed 500 pounds. The big drawback was working with the tractor solo. If you were plowing for someone in a community say 2 miles away you had to put the plow on and drive there on the tractor at 3 miles per hour. So if you were going to be in a community that far away you wanted to do all the plowing on one day and the disking and laying off on the next. That way you were not just burning gas on the highway with no pay. You plowed by the hour. The layoff plows could be hauled from garden to garden on the disk.

It was not uncommon to plow for the same folks year after year. You knew the ground and you knew the folks and had an understanding that when you were in their neighborhood plowing that you go ahead and plow their ground for them and then you all would settle up later. That was the way it went over the years. Did you lose money sometimes? Sure. But most folks were decent folks and knew that was their only shot at getting their ground plowed.

Sometimes there were more gardens in a community than you could plow in a day. So you would drive the tractor there, plow some, and walk home that evening. You would put a metal can or bucket over the muffler which was pointing up so if it rained a little water didn’t get down in the exhaust. Then in the morning you would get up and walk to the tractor and finish your plowing for the day. I walked a many a mile over the railroad to get home or to Paws house. Then drive back and get the disk. Disking was always faster than plowing. You could disk in a day what it took you 3 days to plow.

Knowing the ground was a big thing when it comes to plowing for folks. There is nothing like plowing and finding out there is a old house foundation or tree root where there shouldn’t be one. I remember being 18 years old a plowing a section for the first time in a little community called Short Town. Paw was getting too old to mess with the tractor and dad and my brother were working in the mines all the time so the spring plowing fell to me. I had been plowing since I was 16 years old.  I was plowing for some kin folks and a neighbor came over and asked if I could plow him up a space. You can never know what is under the ground you are about to sink your plow into. But I was young and saw a $50 bill and thought sure.

I was plowing and everything was working well. I was making the turns with the turning plow and had made about 8 passes already. It appeared that this was just regular ground and everything was fine. If you look at the seat of the Farmall in the picture above you will notice it is just a bench seat. There were no seat belts. Well, I was plowing and that plow hit a stump that was below ground. In just a second that tractor had reared and flung me off. It twisted sideways and got loose from the stump and started straight for the river. Luckily I didn’t fall under the plow or under the wheels or that would have been the end for me. I hit the ground hard but hit in just plowed dirt. That cushioned my fall a little.  I was a little addled but got enough of my wits back to run to the tractor and push the clutch with my hand and then turn the key off.

This all occurred in the blink of an eye. One minute I was plowing and the next I was on the ground. That is the way tractor accidents occur. Had Paw or Dad been with me they would have cautioned me about what could happen in new ground. Experience is everything and without it sometimes it can be your last thing. I finished the plowing job after locating that stump but being careful for any others that might be there. I never told Dad or Paw what happened.

There are some advantages of my little Mahindra Tractor over that tractor of Paws. It is easier to get up on. The Framall was so tall it was much harder to get up into the seat often using the rear tires as a step stool. The four wheel drive and positive traction rear end on the Mahindra is invaluable. The roll over protection is also something to depend on because the Farmall didn’t have any. I do prefer the Farmall’s “quick attach” better. I did prefer the plow controls on the Farmall because they were more precise about setting depth. I don’t like the placement of the gas pedal on my Mahindra but the cruise makes up for that. I seldom ever use the gas pedal. The Farmall set the gas and speed from hand control levers. I don’t know if it is because of the form of the Mahindra seat but it seems to be more comfortable than the Farmall bench seat. Four hours on the old tractor and your back could feel it. Finally, there is the tiller. The tiller hands down wins in the garden cultivation and plowing for small gardens contest.   

My brother still owns Paws old tractor. He has recently bought him a used Yanmar tractor with a tiller and loves it. So the old Farmall gets little use any more but it still fires right up and would be ready to plow again even at 61 years old. The mower is rusted apart but the plows, disks, cultivators, and layoff plows are still serviceable to this day. I hope my Mahindra is still running that well in 2075. The plastic might be rotted off by then. But if you take care of a tractor you will pass it on to your great grandchildren.

I hope this finds you well. Send up a prayer for us and we will send up one for you. I reminisce about my grandparents all the time. There are times when I am out in the field doing things that I did with them as a child and think about what they would think of our modern world. They saw the rise of automobiles and trains and jet planes. They were also still alive when the first man walked on the moon. I wonder where we will be when my grandkids turn 18? It is a humbling thought. It makes me understand that Life, Like Homesteading is a Marathon Not a Sprint – Slow Down and Enjoy the Ride.   

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