redneckchevy9
Well-Known Member
...but most inportant is its the father of all modern tractors .
No, this is the father for modern tractors - the F20 was the first rop crop tractor
...but most inportant is its the father of all modern tractors .
I have a friend 75 years old who worked in his very early teens for a haying contractor. He and his crew traveled from farm to farm haying. This would have been around 1954. Although they did nothing but hay, and could justify bigger equipment. They mowed with a Farmall A, tedded with a 9N, and baled with a Farmall 300. I have always marveled that the usual excuse for little tractors was big ones used too much gas. In a time a dollar would buy five gallons, it seems strange to hear that gas was that important. I can't think other than fewer hours would mean the same or less gas. People thought differently then.
Saturday I passed a sod farm where in a 200 acre field a man with an eight wheeled articulated tractor towed a gang mower that must have been 75 feet wide. I wasn't even able to count the hydraulic motors. He mowed a huge field that looked like a putting green. Beside it were several more fields as big, in various stages of growth. His mowing must have been finished before noon.
Willie
Willie: Lot of the people who survived the depression were really tight with a dollar. Heck they were farmers. They expected to work from sun up to sun down. So they never considered what their time was worth. And they had the impression that the smaller tractor would burn less gas. Most farmers back then didn't use an accountant. No one showed them that a tractor that burned 2 gallons an hour and would disk 10 acres in that hour was just as efficient as a tractor that burned 1 gallon an hour but had to run 2 hours to get they same 10 acres disked. Even if they had an M in 52 was a 2400 dollar tractor and burned about 2.7 gallons an hour at PTO rpms. An 8N was a 1400 dollar tractor in 1952 and burned 2.5 gallons an hour.
What I've observed through the years with depression survivors: Ones that were older: the parents, the kids that had to quit school to help the family out is they were extreme tightwads, my dad included. My mom, FIL and MIL were all 10 years or more his junior and small children during the depression or were born during the depression. They spend money. They are hoarders too in the worse sense of the word. But the decision makers on the farms through the 40's and early 50's were guys who had quit school to help. The younger ones were not the decision makers yet.
So with a group of people, farmers in this case, who grew up during the depression or matured shortly after the depression they expected to work long hours. Didn't spend anymore than they had to and didn't have anyone pointing out that the bennies of the larger more productive tractor. Back then the only ones making claims of any type were the manufactures.
So back in the day a farmer had to buy an M then buy NEW implements for it to gain the bennies of the larger tractor. So 2400 bucks plus. Now a guy could by an 8N for 1400 and although I'm not sure of the prices back then I bet a full line of implements to use with the 3 point for another 1K.
Kinda funny but my dad was always trying to save a penny here and there. He had to quit school during the depression to go to work. Then they lost the family farm. Dad then joined the US Army in 38. Now he was a very good mechanic. He hated V8 engines. Waste of money when you could get better mileage with a 6! Plus to more plugs to buy at tune up time. Once I learned about cars on my own I came to understand power to weight. My dad who was a very intelligent man refused to accept that in certain applications a V8 could save money. HIs argument then was that you could do with something smaller that would get good mileage with that 6. It really amazed me the people who were just like him.
Rick
Oh boy, now it's a Ford N series argument now that Rick showed up! Maybe I'm regretting directing him to this topic the other day.
On the topic of depression, Rick nailed it about the pinching pennies and not spending anymore than necessary.
I regards to your engine applications, my 95 Chevy Silverado came from the factory with a 305 in it. Once I got the truck, that 305 was very tired, so I dropped in the usual 350....gas mileage improved. I figured this....that 305 was moving the same size truck as that 350 and that 305 had to wor harder and needed more gas to move it.
Wasn't any argument. I just pointed out the whys and how's. Didn't claim one was better than the other. Only that to someone not really familiar with book keeping would think the N was a better deal than the M. Kinda simple really. A tractor, plow, disk, cultivator, planter and mower for the price of a tractor. And forget about adapting much of you old stuff to use with an M. Tractors much to big but the N being smaller......hence the M not selling as well as people might think it should have.
Rick
In the 70's and early 80's Grandpa had 2 Ford 8N's and a Farmall M, used mostly for brushogging his ranch. When I visited, I was recruited to run them, as they always needed a new sucker to get covered in poison oak. The Farmall had a bigger mower and would cut an acre in considerably less time than the 8N's, But the 8N's were much more pleasant and safe to operate and the 3 point made it easy to back up.Wasn't any argument. I just pointed out the whys and how's. Didn't claim one was better than the other. Only that to someone not really familiar with book keeping would think the N was a better deal than the M. Kinda simple really. A tractor, plow, disk, cultivator, planter and mower for the price of a tractor. And forget about adapting much of you old stuff to use with an M. Tractors much to big but the N being smaller......hence the M not selling as well as people might think it should have.
Rick
I guess I should have used "discussion" instead or argument Rick. The logic makes sense & that is one argument for the Fast Hitch (as you have mentioned before on RP). Hard to get some farmers to buy whole new line up of equip. to fit the NEW tractor they just bought.
My family never owned a tractor My grandfather had a home made thing made from Ford truck parts. In January of 1942 the attack on Pearl Harbor left Americans numb. As my father approached his 20th birthday he was working at Remington Arms in Bridgeport CT. He got the call his father was dying. He made it home to VT, his father was already asleep. Next morning, dad's twentieth birthday, he found his father dead. Soon after, he got his draft notice. The farm was sold in an emergency sale to an investor, remaining time was spent moving his mother, and two younger sisters to a rented apartment.
If you want to discuss a person affected by poverty, and loss that'd be him. Years later he was buying vans for the electrical business, he wanted the smallest engine available. As I came along I tried to convince him a bigger engine would save gas. He wouldn't hear of it. Late in his career, he would unload his truck every night. No need to carry all that stuff, you'll use more gas. I pointed out that I worked most days without having to go get something. I traveled half as many miles.
Willie
In the 70's and early 80's Grandpa had 2 Ford 8N's and a Farmall M, used mostly for brushogging his ranch. When I visited, I was recruited to run them, as they always needed a new sucker to get covered in poison oak. The Farmall had a bigger mower and would cut an acre in considerably less time than the 8N's, But the 8N's were much more pleasant and safe to operate and the 3 point made it easy to back up.
Back in the 40's, I don't think it was an accounting decision to buy the most efficient tractor. It was a matter of whether or not you could afford a tractor at all, and the lower the price point, the more likely you could buy one. Henry Ford wanted to make a tractor that would last practically forever and empower the little guy and, all the faults of his underpowered, high geared tractors taken into consideration, I think he did a pretty damn good job of it.
In the 70's and early 80's Grandpa had 2 Ford 8N's and a Farmall M, used mostly for brushogging his ranch. When I visited, I was recruited to run them, as they always needed a new sucker to get covered in poison oak. The Farmall had a bigger mower and would cut an acre in considerably less time than the 8N's, But the 8N's were much more pleasant and safe to operate and the 3 point made it easy to back up.
Back in the 40's, I don't think it was an accounting decision to buy the most efficient tractor. It was a matter of whether or not you could afford a tractor at all, and the lower the price point, the more likely you could buy one. Henry Ford wanted to make a tractor that would last practically forever and empower the little guy and, all the faults of his underpowered, high geared tractors taken into consideration, I think he did a pretty damn good job of it.
The only disagreement I have with anything in this most is when a poster called the N series the father of the modern tractor. That is just plain wrong.
They didn't have a dealer in every town. Here the local dealer sold IH, Next town it was JD. The nearest Ford dealer was 14 miles away. That mattered in 1940. Used tractors came from auctions. I doubt there were enough used ones to go around in the early days.
Willie