Help me buy a tractor!

[djb25]

Hi everyone,

I just purchased a home on about three acres of land, and I'm trying to figure out what sort of tractor I should buy to care for the property.

First, the property - again, it's about 3 acres of land. It's an old farmhouse in a rural area. The property isn't flat, it's on a bit of a hillside - it's not steep, but it's definitely sloped. The lot itself is nicely wooded, there are quite a few trees, including four apple trees. And the driveway (which is quite long - 600 feet or so) has trees lining each side.

So I'm looking for a mower to cut this land, and I'm also trying to figure out what I'm going to do about keeping the driveway clear of snow (I'm in northwestern PA).

I'm tempted to buy a nice garden tractor with a snowblower attachment, but I'm not sure if that's going to cut it for snow removal.

The driveway isn't paved and it's pretty long. I don't want to spend the money on a snowblower attachment if its going to take me three hours to clear the driveway with it...

So... should I buy a large garden tractor (like the John Deere X300 series) and a snowblower, or should I save my money and buy something smaller and hire someone to plow the drive?

Also - any recommendations on a tractor for mowing the yard?


Thanks!

Damion

 

[James Loehr]

Try to find a good used garden tractor with blower. It would be more capable than the X300. I had a John Deere 335 with blower and did about 600 ft gravel drive. I now use a Kubota BX with front blower. A John Deere 400 series with blower would work great.

 

[bp fick]

Take some time to think through your choices and your decisions. Think more than once about just WHAT you are really going to do with this machine.

Mow? likely that is certain.

Push or blow snow? You seem certain about that too.

Sooner or later though, you are going to find other chores to do. Till a garden area? Pull stumps, drag stuff with a chain, maintain the gravel drive, level off a lawn area, move gravel/dirt/sand piles. The endless uses for tractor attachments from rakes, blades, mowers, post hole diggers, Front End Loaders, tillers, and so forth makes a tractor, even a smallish one, very, very useful in living in the country on a few acres.

This is merely my experience. Your mileage may vary. A forum like this tends to gravitate very quickly into a "buy a huge tractor" point of view because people all just end to do that. It's kind of human nature.

A good, solid, orange, red or green "garden tractor" will set you back, out the door, over $8000. Sometimes, with attachments, folks get $11,000 in one in a hurry.

That's OK, and if that is what you decide, that's fine. But when I went through this dilemma, I realized that for that kind of money, or less, I could buy a true, sub-compact tractor with a limited (20" space) Cat 1, 3 pt hitch, multiple PTO, real diesel engine with grunt and fuel economy, and access to inexpensive new or used real implements. Orange, Green, Red or Purple, these dealers also can finance a sub-cut, (sub-compact, utility tractor) for 5 or 6 years, zero down, zero interest. Just something to consider.

 

[jhwentworth]

Hi everyone,

And the driveway (which is quite long - 600 feet or so) has trees lining each side.

So I'm looking for a mower to cut this land, and I'm also trying to figure out what I'm going to do about keeping the driveway clear of snow (I'm in northwestern PA).

Damion

How much snow do you get?
I tried the "garden tractor (Cub Cadet 3204) with snowblower" approach to plowing my 400' driveway in New Hampshire and gave it up after one winter. Cold and wet is not the way I wanted to spend my winters. That northwest wind in February can be tough.

Look around for an old plow truck to handle the driveway, and then find a used garden tractor to handle the lawn mowing. At some point you'll be looking for a "real" tractor for various heavy-duty jobs. So far I'm at a Cub Cadet 3204, a Cub Cadet 104, a Dodge D-2500 w/8' Fisher plow, and an Agco ST-35 CUT. There really is no limit to the number of essential tools you need.

Seriously, a cheap old plow truck is probably the best answer to plowing a 600' driveway. Trust me, listening to the radio with the heater blasting is the way to clear a foot and a half of snow.

 

[bontai_Joe]

I know you just bought a house and money is probably tight, but the Deere X300 series is really going to be too small/light duty for what you want to do. If Deere is your flavor of choice, I'd be looking at the X500 series as the minimum, but the above suggestion of a diesel sub-compact utility tractor is better, especially if it will be your primary snow mover. More versitility, can be fitted with a cab for winter use, more power, better fuel economy and most likely a 25 year life span. If you are looking for a new machine, Deere, Massey Ferguson, Cub Cadet, Simplicity, Kubota, New Holland all make nice sub-compact machines, and there are the more affordable imports like Kioti, Mahindra, and others that bear a more cautious looking at for local service and parts availability.

If you have mechanical skills and can deal with an older machine, the old Deere 300 series & 400 series, Cub Cadet 3000 series, Bolens large frame diesels made by Iseiki, can all be found with a mower deck and snow blower for around $5000, but no warantee, and it requires careful shopping on your part.

 

[sld]

I maintain 5 acres with a Ford 1210 4wd. I have added a fel, box blade, bush hog and rear blade. This pretty much covers all the bases. You can get these mid 80's diesels for as low as 2500.00.

They do many times the work of a lawn mower yet can still mow the lawn. Don't over look something like this for small land maintenance. If you go this route, I do suggest getting the 4wd as this makes all the difference when moving snow or moving dirt.

Some people will say parts are expensive, but nothing ever breaks if you take care of it. Mine is 23 years old and has had nothing but filters and fluids.

 

[Steve C]

Hi everyone,

I just purchased a home on about three acres of land, and I'm trying to figure out what sort of tractor I should buy to care for the property.

First, the property - again, it's about 3 acres of land. It's an old farmhouse in a rural area. The property isn't flat, it's on a bit of a hillside - it's not steep, but it's definitely sloped. The lot itself is nicely wooded, there are quite a few trees, including four apple trees. And the driveway (which is quite long - 600 feet or so) has trees lining each side.

So I'm looking for a mower to cut this land, and I'm also trying to figure out what I'm going to do about keeping the driveway clear of snow (I'm in northwestern PA).

I'm tempted to buy a nice garden tractor with a snowblower attachment, but I'm not sure if that's going to cut it for snow removal.

The driveway isn't paved and it's pretty long. I don't want to spend the money on a snowblower attachment if its going to take me three hours to clear the driveway with it...

So... should I buy a large garden tractor (like the John Deere X300 series) and a snowblower, or should I save my money and buy something smaller and hire someone to plow the drive?

Also - any recommendations on a tractor for mowing the yard?


Thanks!

Damion

A garden tractor with a 44 to 54 inch deck will do the job on the yard and a front snow plow will handle the snow if you don't let it get ahead of you. Angle the 4 foot blade and make 6 passes at wide open throttle. It will take you about an hour to clear a 4 inch snow fall. Make sure to push it back far enough to allow for future snow. The last tractor I bought like this cost me $500 used. Craftsman GT 18.5 hp hydrostatic. After the snow banks freeze I can push more snow on top of them to a depth of about 5 foot and push new snow over the bank taking straight runs at it. It is time consuming dealing with it when it gets real deep but I like doing it. The snow blowers always seem to conspire with the wind to dump it down my neck.

A zero turn mower will cut your mowing time in half but won't do anything for the snow.

A plow truck with a heated cab is the ultimate snow device.

 

[Pilot]

I fall into the compact tractor camp. As others have said, you'll find you can do a lot with it. I have a Deere 770 with loader, a blade, disk, cultivator, blanket harrow and bush hog mower.

As I found out last winter, some years have a lot more snow than others. Plowed my 1,300 ft. driveway several times and if I had let it build up, I am not sure how long I would have been at it with the loader. The blade is quick, but doesn't move a lot of snow. I have never tried clearing it with a riding mower, but I doubt it would be much use.

The loader is really handy and those who have had them say they'll never buy another tractor without one. I won't, either.

The disk and cultivator are great for prepping ground, although a tiller would do the job better.

Just got the blanket harrow this spring. Had a small area I was going to expand my lawn into. Used the cultivator to break up the ground and pick up old tree roots, the disk for breaking up the ground into finer chunks and a couple passes with the harrow left it ready for hand raking.

The bush hog is great for all the areas that aren't in grass.

Oh, yes, the grass--I have a regular riding mower for that.

I like JD because you can get parts forever for them and if the dealer doesn't have your part in stock, he'll have it there tomorrow. And the 770 has pretty wide tires so I feel safe on a side hill--not the case with the Kubota or the Yanmar I had.

 

[JohnDeereFan8899]

I would Probably get a small compact tractor. You can get mid mounted mower decks with the John Deere compact tractors, they work great. You can also get a snowblower attachment for the john deere tractors, but im not sure if its great on a non-paved surface. I think a john deere 2305 or 2320, would work great. Somewhere in that range. I have a john deere 4720, but that will probably be a little much for 3 acres. John deere would be my choice, because i know they are powerfull. Case is good, then new holland.