Curious How They Use to do This?

[gwstang]

I have noticed on the old tractors (Maybe 1920-1940) that many of the , for example JD/Farmall or such, did not have the 3 point hitch or hydraulics. How did they transport the "implement" such as a plow or disc or anything? Some of the implements did not have wheels on them and no hydraulics meant no lifting. Did they park the implement on the edges of their fields and then just drag them around to where they needed them? Seems that would plow where you didn't want it to plow or plant or such when moving to the next field? Just curious and have wondered about this for a long time. I am talking of the one's that only had a drawbar. Thanks.

 

[KennyG]

A lot of different answers here. In the 50's we had tractors with hydraulic and tractors without. Many of our implements were from the 20's and 30's. Plows had wheels and trip mechanisms to lift the shears. Discs just rolled on hard surfaces. To move them over the road you needed a trailer. Same with harrows. You dismantled them and piled them on a trailer. Pre-hydraulic tractors like the International F series had a mechanical lift so they could use a mounted cultivator and some other implements.

 

[MossRoad]

That's what the FEL is for! Oh, wait.... :laughing:

 

[gwstang]

OK, that makes sense. I was wondering about how they did cross the roads because it seems farmers had fields on both sides of the old county roads and such and the implements would tear up the road. Of course many were just dirt roads long ago. Thanks. :thumbsup:

 

[gwstang]

That's what the FEL is for! Oh, wait.... :laughing:

That would just be toooooo easy. I don't know how many had FEL's way back in the 20's and such. :confused2:

 

[TerryR]

In the late 1950's and 1960's we moved them from field to field with an implement carrier, like this one from a 1963 patent application:


You pulled the carrier into the field over the implement with a pickup, lifted the implement with the chains, then drove off to the next field

Terry

 

[gwstang]

Thanks, that makes sense with that mover.

 

[bcp]

Never saw one like that. In the SW, they were mostly this design.



Side view. Three winches on top, usually made from a differential, and crank and chain at operator level.

Every rural intersection had a pile of tires for cats and discs to cross the road. Shoulders were all wide enough for equipment to use and stay off pavement.

Bruce

PS found a photo.

 

[MHarryE]

Implements we used behind our M and H had mechanical lift. Plow, for example, had a rotating axle with a cam mechanism. Pull the trip rope and the plow would drop. The cam arrangement would make a half turn and disengage, the plow would drop by the axle pivoting forward. Pull the trip lever again and the cam would engage and 1/2 wheel rotation would lift the plow. I have one of our old steel wheel plows on display in my antique machinery row on my driveway but the ones I used were on rubber tires. The steel wheel plow came from when my dad had a Farmall F-20 on steel.

Same principle for cultivators. They also had a cam arrangement that lifted the cultivator with one wheel rotation. One of these is in a fence row - I need to move it to my collection.

Disc was another matter. Would you believe that a lot of moving to nearby fields was done by shifting the gangs to zero angle and pulling gown the gravel road? For longer distances we had 4 loading planks and a hay wagon. Pull the disc onto the wagon using a chain.

Our H had a hydraulic pump gorgeous use with the loader. One of our Ms eventually got a hydraulic pump when we got our first hay conditioner. It was a combination suit - towed sickle bar mower with a trailing mower conditioner. Hydraulics were needed to lift the sickle bar.

We got our first wheeled disc in 1956 when we got a Case 400 Super Diesel. 56 whopping PTO horsepower, power steering, live PTO. It wax the cat's meow. We got a 3 point cultivator got it - Case Eagle Claw hitch, forerunner of many of today's quick hitch.

 

[Bird]

Our 1940 John Deere L, also known as a garden tractor, just used a single bottom plow that was raised and lowered with a manual lever on the driver's right side. And we had an old horse drawn disc with part of the tongue cut off that was towed behind the tractor. Of course it still had the seat that was used when it was pulled by horses and Dad got Mother to ride on that seat one day for a little extra weight, but after she did a back flip off that thing when he went over a terrace, she refused to get back on. So he wired some cinder blocks on it for weight.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Lets not forget that many folks used a wooden sled that they put the implement on and dragged that from place to place. Likely it was the same one they used with the mules to move plows and such. I remember riding on the one my Dad used when he still farmed with mules. It was kind of like surfing on dry land, a lot slower but also more jerky motions.

 

[Turbys_1700]

Like others here have said, we utilized trip plows for use with our M back in the 60's. I pulled a really good 2 bottom Oliver 14" trip plow with our M. We also utilized remote hydraulics for our offset disc. Our Super A was used mainly to pull a hay rake and cultivate.

 

[TerryR]

Never saw one like that. In the SW, they were mostly this design.

View attachment 429333

I've seen that style, but in north central California the soil is adobe clay, and packs if worked with wheel tractors. So all the tillage was done with track engines - we used IHC TD-40s. That meant bigger tillage tools that wouldn't fit in the two-wheel carriers, so the four-wheel ones were more popular. Most were commercially made. Some had a wheel system on the end to raise the chains, but ours had independent rollers for each pair of chains, and a big ratchet (4 to 5 ft. long) that was attached to each in turn to raise the tool.

We used H's and M's only for row crop work - planting, cultivating, cutting and raking dry beans. The planters and rakes had tires so could be towed on the road, but our fields were scattered over three counties so the distances could be long, and mostly they were hauled in the carrier.

Terry

 

[RaydaKub]

That would just be toooooo easy. I don't know how many had FEL's way back in the 20's and such. :confused2:

I can answer that. None.
I have no proof, but as the story goes, there were 2 guys that were mighty tired of using pitchforks to shovel up all the manure dumped out of the barn during the winter. So they got a bunch of metal, cut it by hand (didn't have electricity), drilled it by hand, and bolted together a contraption. They mounted it on an F12 Farmall, drove out of the shop in the spring toward the manure pile. There were push beams back to the rear axle and a frame that outlined the front end with a belt drive winch up on top. It wasn't perfect, but it got the job done. The neighbors drove by and almost went in the ditch they were so distracted. But they went into town and spread the word about what they had seen, a tractor with some kind of scoop on it. By that afternoon, it looked like the county fair out there. The cars were parked on both sides of the road for a 1/4 mile in both directions. Well, it worked pretty well, but the F12 was over-matched. About a year later, Farmall introduced their first loader on an F20 and it looked extremely close in design to what these 2 young farm boys had come up with. Not exactly sure of the year, but the F20 was sold through 1939. One of the boys was born in 1918 and the other a few years earlier. The 2 boys grew up in western Minnesota. The younger one was my dad, the other my uncle. Sure wish they would have thought to patent it.

 

[bcp]

No doubt they did as you said, but I expect it was an independent invention.

Cable operated loaders similar to the one you describe seem to be a common early way of doing it.



1924 MC Cormick Deering 10-20 Manure Loader - TractorShed.com

http://digitool.library.colostate.e...ULE_ID=10&frameId=1&usePid1=true&usePid2=true

A hay stacker could be inspiration for a manure loader.

[video]http://www.teagle.co.uk/documents/images/460px_wide_Stacker-fully-lifted_1948.jpg[/video]

A really old one:



Bruce

 

[2458n]

There used to be a fence row on every farm where this stuff with out wheels lived after it was out dated. With the high price for scrap steel most of it has made a trip to China and back.

 

[RaydaKub]

No doubt they did as you said, but I expect it was an independent invention.

Cable operated loaders similar to the one you describe seem to be a common early way of doing it.

<img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/files/owning-operating/429470-curious-how-they-use-do-t2ec16jhjhwe9n8igt-mbqf-z2iit-60_57-jpg"/>

1924 MC Cormick Deering 10-20 Manure Loader - TractorShed.com

http://digitool.library.colostate.edu/view/action/singleViewer.do?dvs=1434164773643~12&locale=en_US&VIEWER_URL=/view/action/singleViewer.do?&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=10&frameId=1&usePid1=true&usePid2=true

A hay stacker could be inspiration for a manure loader.

Video Link: http://www.teagle.co.uk/documents/images/460px_wide_Stacker-fully-lifted_1948.jpg

A really old one:

<img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/files/owning-operating/429472-curious-how-they-use-do-post-39341-129493671575-jpg"/> <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/files/owning-operating/429473-curious-how-they-use-do-post-39341-129493675318-jpg"/>

Bruce

Very interesting. I can't get to the Colorado link at all. The last one looks about the same vintage. The first one, if the date is accurate, would appear to make me a liar. I can only relate the story he told me. He's been gone for 4 years. Given the rest of the made-from-scratch stuff I saw both of them make, I don't doubt the story, I just can't reconcile the dates. It is certainly possible that McCormick came out with theirs after some other smaller company did one also. Pretty sure the F12 had steel wheels and the F20 shown on tractordata had rubber tires.

 

[bcp]

No one is a liar. Things were often invented independently at different times and places, with no knowledge of any previous.

Here is the Colorado photo.



and some more.



Bruce

 

[bcp]

Back on topic, some photos of how they used to move a disk.


Bruce

 

[RaydaKub]

Those are some great pics, Bruce!