How many acres was an 8N designed to farm, when new?

[JsJs]

Interesting historical ag conversation. Noticed he paid $1,504.00 in 1952 for a brand new tractor. Inflation makes that $17,130.00 2025. What a bargain he got.

 

[Bentrim]

Dad bought a '48 8N at a sale in the early 50's. As I was too young to remember but he told me he had a Black Hawk 2 row planter to plant all the corn. Also bought a new JD 2 bottom 14" plow which he believed was the first one the dealer sold.He had a '46 JD A for the heavy work. The Ford also raked hay, and pulled the stone boat. Later dad bought a LOU 20 Ferguson loader to clean on the barn with. When I got big enough to be a steering wheel holder he sat me on the seat to steer the tractor so he could load hay that was baled on the ground.
When he got the tractor he also got one of those jacks that used the hitch to lift the whole tractor to change wheel spacing etc. That tractor also got used with a rear mounted blade to push snow out of the lane.. If loads weren't too big even used it to pull loads of hay and straw to the barn.
Dad farm about 80 acres on the home farm and rented or share crop about another 100 acres.
In '56 the A got a lot of help from a new JD 70 diesel in '58 the Black Hawk planter got replaced by a JD 494A so the Ford got releived for the corn planting duty put still did a lot of small odd jobs.

 

[sixdogs]

The tractors that really took off were the Int'l Harvesters. Their extra weight and the pulling power of the H or M was a game changer. Back then IH was the dominant brand and most farmers either had or wanted one. JD was still grunting along with two cylinders.

IH could have been JD and I guess they just lost their way. IH of then could have been the JD of today had they focused differently.

 

[EdGooding]

The tractors that really took off were the Int'l Harvesters. Their extra weight and the pulling power of the H or M was a game changer. Back then IH was the dominant brand and most farmers either had or wanted one. JD was still grunting along with two cylinders.

IH could have been JD and I guess they just lost their way. IH of then could have been the JD of today had they focused differently.

A quote from Harold Brock after he left Ford Tractor and joined John Deere:
"I left the Ford Motor Company in 1959 to help John Deere update the older two-cylinder models. The new generation of tractors of Deere in the 1960s advanced the features of hydraulic controls of all functions, better operator station and ergonomics to enhance operator comfort. As Deere's first Director of Worldwide Tractor Engineering, my staff introduced the first industry quiet, air conditioned cab and powershift transmissions. These advances finally placed Deere in a leadership position."

 

[BossofBBQ]

Dad bought a '48 8N at a sale in the early 50's. As I was too young to remember but he told me he had a Black Hawk 2 row planter to plant all the corn. Also bought a new JD 2 bottom 14" plow which he believed was the first one the dealer sold.He had a '46 JD A for the heavy work. The Ford also raked hay, and pulled the stone boat. Later dad bought a LOU 20 Ferguson loader to clean on the barn with. When I got big enough to be a steering wheel holder he sat me on the seat to steer the tractor so he could load hay that was baled on the ground.
When he got the tractor he also got one of those jacks that used the hitch to lift the whole tractor to change wheel spacing etc. That tractor also got used with a rear mounted blade to push snow out of the lane.. If loads weren't too big even used it to pull loads of hay and straw to the barn.
Dad farm about 80 acres on the home farm and rented or share crop about another 100 acres.
In '56 the A got a lot of help from a new JD 70 diesel in '58 the Black Hawk planter got replaced by a JD 494A so the Ford got releived for the corn planting duty put still did a lot of small odd jobs.

I also have one of those jacks, it was included as a package deal with my tractor. I've never used it; seems safer/wiser to use a floor jack instead. Regardless, it's a neat and very unique tool. I even have the front piece for it.

 

[EdGooding]

I also have one of those jacks, it was included as a package deal with my tractor. I've never used it; seems safer/wiser to use a floor jack instead. Regardless, it's a neat and very unique tool. I even have the front piece for it.

The jacks do work well as long as your hydraulics don't leak down, but you can deal with that with limiter chains:

 

[BossofBBQ]

The jacks do work well as long as your hydraulics don't leak down, but you can deal with that with limiter chains:

I'll have to try it out, then! After I rebuilt/adjusted my top cover, including a new Jubilee style piston and new cylinder, my leak down problems have pretty much been completely eliminated.

 

[EdGooding]

I'll have to try it out, then! After I rebuilt/adjusted my top cover, including a new Jubilee style piston and new cylinder, my leak down problems have pretty much been completely eliminated.

They are big attention-getters at shows and events.

Since you are in Colorado, they are handy when you want to put chains on the rear tires to move snow.

 

[Gem99ultra]

My closest week-end place neighbor had a 1958 8N and I had a 1960 Fordson Dexta. The 8N was no competition for my Fordson as far as pulling power went but with a Sherman transmission, I think it would have been a very close match. Those transmissions, i.e. Sherman dual range transmissions were and are as scarce as hens' teeth. Unobtainable.
Another neighbor had a 9N, which I felt was a very weak competitor.
We actually had very little real work to do with any tractor, both of us being weekend only farmers, but we did 'play' with them all the time. About the heaviest work we ever had to do was a lot of brush hogging.
I have a lot of respect for folks having to make their living depending on their tractor performance.

 

[Shady oak]

I was raised on 2 cylinder Deeres and a 8N. The Ford was for wagon and manure spreader work, raking, mowing hay etc. We did have a 2-14” mounted plow but that was sort of useless, since you had a hard time getting it to stay in the ground. On occasion when plowing with a JD in very tough conditions, we would hook a chain and a tire between the Ford and the Deere for extra power. The 8N’s biggest drawback with lack of traction. The smaller wheels and the lighter weight made it vulnerable to slippage. Same as a WD-45. Good engines, but not much traction.

I ended up buying a 8N when I had some acreage. It was ok for awhile, but getting it started with that 6V system was a pain. That and I had forgotten how high the reverse speed was. That said I had it for some years and it served me well. Eventually sold it to a mechanic friend of mine, and bought a used JD 955 which has been an excellent machine. Love those 3 cylinder diesels!

 

[KennyG]

The 8N’s biggest drawback with lack of traction. The smaller wheels and the lighter weight made it vulnerable to slippage. Same as a WD-45. Good engines, but not much traction.

Don't dis my ACs! The WD-45 was a little lighter than a Farmall M, but it was well over 1000 pounds heavier than an 8N and had significantly larger tires. In our are it was about an even split between AC and Farmall with a few JDs, mainly because the AC and Farmall dealers were the best. We did usually weight the wheels but the ACs could outwork the Farmalls, especially when we put D-17 kits in the WD-45s. We had ACs and my uncle had Farmalls, so we had a direct comparison.

 

[Shady oak]

One thing I will say about the AC and Ford. They had good motors. While this may seem like an odd metric, you saw a lot of AC and Ford engines running carnival rides. That meant they were reliable, started well, and had some longevity. If they had not, the carnys would have ran something else.

I did have some familiarity with the AC brand. My uncle and his son ran them as did a close neighbor. So I got to drive them occasionally. I always thought having a hand clutch and foot clutch on them was interesting!

 

[KennyG]

The ACs were great for baling hay because you could use the hand clutch and keep the PTO running, which most other tractors of the era could not.

 

[NUTTERDW]

Imagine it's 1948, and a farmer has just bought a brand spanking new 8N as his primary tractor. How many acres would he likely farm? The large scale of agriculture industry today makes it hard to imagine a time when a feller could successfully farm with just an 8N, especially for us young guys...

In my area there were a lot of small ranches, seems like almost every one of them had an N Ford at one point or another, mainly for augering post-holes, backblading dirt roads, and brushhogging. I knew of one that was used solely for snow removal, with a Dearborn 19-1 snow blade. That was a pretty slick setup. In my memory, the N's have always been regarded as faithful little "chore" tractors, while bigger machines handled the heavy lifting. Was this always the case?

Thanks for entertaining my rambling, folks- Fell down a rabbit hole looking at old Dearborn equipment brochures I've recently acquired....

if you consider the 8n was replacing a team of horses then it was a big improvement. We had two teams of horses on the farm I grew up on, which was around 70 acres of tillable land. One Formal C replaced both teams. C was around the same hp as the 8 N. I still have the C today.

 

[BossofBBQ]

It was definitely a massive improvement over working with a team of horses or mules. If a farm used an N-series as the chore tractor and a Farmall M or JD G as the big tractor, did that mean they had to buy separate implements for each machine? A Farmall M is much larger than an 8N, but I can imagine it could be inconvenient having to purchase and maintain two different sets of implements.

I’m especially curious about the 3-point implements for the N-series Fords. Since other tractors at the time didn’t use a 3-point hitch, those implements wouldn’t fit anything else. How did farms handle that mismatch?

 

[KennyG]

If you wanted mounted implements you had to dedicate them to the tractor. We had snap coupler plows for the ACs but we also had a pull type trip plow for the old F-20. Other than plows and cultivators there weren't many mounted implements.

 

[paulsharvey]

Not an 8N, but dad had an old Ford NAA, Jubilee, that he drug many many loads of hardwood time out to the road for grapple trucks back when there were small independent sawmills with grapple straight trucks in WVa. We had 90 acres of mountain woods, and raised sheep, and about an acre of garden and another acre of fruit trees. He did replace the engine at one point. Ive kinda wondered a time or two what happened to the tractor after he died in a roll over. I think mom either gave it away or sold it for next to nothing. It did a Lot of work, but also had a lot of limitations. This would have been late 80s; so very obsolete at the time.

 

[wmfamily]

In the '50's and '60's a diversified family farm that had some cows, chickens and pigs, made hay and grew feed grain was commonly 60 acres. Coming off the depression and war, the 8N did most of what was required and was priced right. It was a great tractor for that use. That same farm might later add an Int'l H or M or Deere.

The need for HP grew fast but Ford was slow on that so IH and Deere elbowed in and the Ford 8N was pushed aside to became a great utility tractor for raking hay and pulling wagons. They didn't get much use and that's why so many survived with fairly low use. Anyway, that's what I saw.

We didn't have a farm in the 50s or 60s but we did have a 127 acre dairy farm we had an 8n and a JD 520. The little 8n was the handy tractor that we used for all the small work (mowing, raking, planting, etc.) and the JD handled the bailing, plowing, and discing. We tried "dirt" farming for a bit but the weather wasn't reliable enough to make it work. Pastured cows with winter hay forage was the money maker for almost 20 years before all the boys left to make their own fortunes.

 

[fustsgt]

I bought my '52 8N from the original purchaser. He still had his owner's manual, sales receipt and customer survey (attached here). With the 8N, I got his Dearborn 2-14 Economy plow, Dearborn cultivator, and Love Tractor disc harrow. You will see from the survey that he farmed 70-99 acres with it. It replaced his mules. Can you imagine how hard that was? Mr. Bangs worked this 8N hard, but loved it and took great care of it. He started getting emotional as I loaded it on my trailer and I offered to back out of the deal, but he would not hear of it as long as I promised to take good care of her. I've had her for about 30 years now. I've also attached the sales invoice that shows the original price of the 8N and implements.

Think about how much middle America was farmed with 1 horse power...

 

[fustsgt]

We didn't have a farm in the 50s or 60s but we did have a 127 acre dairy farm we had an 8n and a JD 520. The little 8n was the handy tractor that we used for all the small work (mowing, raking, planting, etc.) and the JD handled the bailing, plowing, and discing. We tried "dirt" farming for a bit but the weather wasn't reliable enough to make it work. Pastured cows with winter hay forage was the money maker for almost 20 years before all the boys left to make their own fortunes.

Yep, we all went off to serve our country and never came back!