Gold Was Just A Windy Kansas Wheat Field, Blue Just A Kansas Summer Sky

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2013: Gold Was Just A Windy Kansas Wheat Field, Blue Just A Kansas Summer Sky
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jay - In Northern California on Friday, April 05, 2013 - 11:39 pm:


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By George Clipner-Los Angeles on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 12:28 am:

Looks like Jelf's back forty.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Paul Mikeska, Denver CO on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 01:07 am:

What a great picture! Thanks Jay.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 02:57 am:

Notice that those combines are built on Fordson tractors. They were sold as an attachment that fit on your Fordson, far easier and cheaper to operate than a pull-type combine, which was standard at the time. There are still a few of them around, most are in good condition because it didn't take long for them to be obsoleted by something bigger and faster. They were the first self-propelled combine made in the US, there was not another until the Massey Harris 47 that came out during the early part of the second world war.

These were a good idea and worked fairly well but the Fordson was underpowered and would slow down under load, slowing the chaff fans and the combine would plug up in heavy straw. There big advantage was that it only took one man to operate the machine, pull type combines took at least two men, one on the tractor and one on the machine, most took three, two on the combine, one to run the header and one to operate.

Without looking up info on them, I think Gleaner made them for two or possibly three years, going back to making only pull type machines. A few years later they merged with Balwin to become Gleaner-Baldwin. They used Model T engines for combine power at first and after 1928 used Model A power.

There is one on display at the Montana Farm Museum in Fort Benton, we sold it at a farm sale about 20 years ago; it was purchased by a local farmer and donated to the museum.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dennis Henrichs on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 04:25 am:

Jay,
Thanks for the picture. Brings back lots of memories. Too bad it isn't in color; would be dramatic with the sky/wheat contrast.

Stan,
Thanks for the Gleaner info. I was around the Massey Harris when I was a kid. Dad used pull machines before that. I remember a Rumley and another brand; I forget the name. Plugged up the pull machines too from time to time. Had a big rack and pinion to level the machine on inclined ground. Wheel was too big for me to turn as a little kid but always tried. Dad would have had a fit if somebody drove their car in the wheat instead of staying in the straw row.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Michael Deichmann, Blistrup, Denmark on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 04:44 am:

I was a little surprised to see combines at the T era, but then I read Stans excellent historic update and after that I have no further questions.
Well dome Mr. Auctioneer!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Anthonie Boer on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 04:57 am:

Stan : Thank you for the information !!!!
Toon


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Sam "POPS" Humphries, Lexington, KY on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 06:37 am:

Is that Steve holding on to the combine in the center. Reminds me of riding the right rear of a John Deere 12D at the tender age of 10 thrashing wheat, oats, barley and rye. What a sweaty, dirty job whit all our all that chaff covering you up.

Where did those good times go?

Had forgotten that I was hand cranking A or T engines a very long time ago.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Michael Pawelek Brookshire, Texas on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 07:45 am:

The fellow that is all clean in a white shirt near the Model T is probably the town banker!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Herb Iffrig on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 07:49 am:

There was a Gleaner combine mounted on a Ford tractor at the Old Threshers Reunion in Mt. Pleasant Iowa when I was there the last time.
I can't say it was exactly like this one or not.

Herb


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Tim Wrenn on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 08:53 am:

Jay-as always, fantastic pictures. You present a better history lessen than anyone ever got in high school!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Gene Carrothers Huntington Beach on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 01:13 pm:

Hey Stan,
Thanks for the tip about the Farm Museum in Fort Benton which is the hub of the Montana 500 race this year. I'll have to check it out.

Ya, it still makes get goose bumps thinking of all that itchy chaf sticking to our sweaty bodies. Thanks for the reminder of why I love the SoCal area just when I was having that homesick notion again.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Timothy a Moen on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 01:30 pm:

Gleaner combines! That is what duct tape was invented for! We called it gleaner glue. later tim


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Erich Bruckner, Vancouver, WA on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 02:38 pm:

Isn't that Mr. Jelf reclined in the hay wagon back there? From here it sure looks like Steve.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Roar Sand on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 04:25 pm:

I remember the first combines coming to Norway in the fifties. I don't remember the make, but the ones I saw were powered by the industrial version of the VW Beetle engine. That was notable to me, as my dad had bought a new Beetle in 1953.
Interesting parallel there, - the first self propelled combine here with basically T power and on the other side of the Atlantic with VW power. Several farmers in an area would go together and purchase one of those machines, and they would go from farm to farm in the fall.
FWIW
Roar


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Hal Davis-SE Georgia on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 08:23 pm:

I'm sitting here wondering about a hot T exhaust pipe/muffler on top of that field of dry wheat.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Randy Driscoll on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 08:34 pm:

Bonanzaville in Fargo, ND has a Gleaner mounted on a Fordson. Around here Gleaner combines are known as "Silver Seeders".


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bill dugger on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 08:51 pm:

George: Google Steve's place and you will see his North ,East and West forty and the south goes for ever, just like Kansas, and you might even see the blue tarp on the un-repaired roof of his house. Oh and ask him about the lost tire in the Wheat field, and he did find the tube but lucky the Combine did not find the tire in the header unit.
Bill d


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bill dugger on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 09:01 pm:

I took a magnifying glass and it sure is him as I could see the tape measure on his bib overalls. Sorry Steve had to pick up on it. Still liked meeting him as he is a very interesting person.

Bill D
California


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Gregush Portland Oregon on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 10:23 pm:

We had an old pull type Case, under a heavy load the air cooled motors exhaust would glow a nice cheery red. Guess that's how it was and never gave it a lot of thought. The pipe did run straight up and the motor was sitting up on top. Can't remember if it was an 6 or 8 foot cut.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Kelsey on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 11:09 pm:

Is the Gleaner a self-propelled? I think they had an auger-style header, didn't they?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Woods, Katy, Texas on Saturday, April 06, 2013 - 11:46 pm:

My father, J.D. Woods Sr., was a Texas rice farmer. He was one of the first five rice farmers in this area to buy a self propelled combine. In fact, I only know of one farmer who bought one before him. Here, he is featured in a Massey-Harris magazine advertisement.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Kelsey on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 01:10 am:

Terry:

That is really cool! What year was that?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 03:37 am:

Jim, if you look at the picture you can see how these worked. The cutter bar is, of course, directly below the reel, behind that is a draper header (IE, a canvas sheet with wooden slats on it) that carries the cut grain to the right side of the operator. The grain moves up a conveyor chain to the beater bars and back to the straw walkers. The heads are shelled out by now and the straw goes out the back, the grain moves over from the right to the left via a chain carrier in a tube just behind the wheels. At the end of the chain carrier there is an elevator that carries the grain up to the tank. The actual threshing system on these was pretty small, maybe only 26 or 28 inches, the header was about 10 feet and in heavy grain, especially pulling a hill, the Fordson would run out of power even in low gear and slow down to where the straw walkers wouldn't carry the grain out the back and it would "stuff" the walkers, plugging up the combine. The operator would have to shut it down and crawl up inside and clean out the excess straw. Then if the grain was shelling out good, the chaff blower would let all the chaff drop down in the grain instead of blowing it out the back with the straw, the chain carrier would plug from too much grain and that would also have to be cleaned before you could get going again. But they worked, they only took one man to operate and they cut the grain in the field instead of binding, shocking, bundle spiking and then threshing the grain which took a lot of labor and left the grain to get rained on or burn in the field. This was an improvement over what they had.


This whole system ran on the belt pulley on the right side of the combine and IIRC it had a belt clutch so you could get the Fordson running before you put the combine in action.


That big handle up above and to the right of the operator is the header lift. Running that up and down all day would make an old man out of you before long.

Starting the Fordson was quite a trick in itself. Some of these had a system that ran the crank out the back on the carburetor side of the engine so you could crank the Fordson to start it, there was no room in the front for a crank. Some had a crank that went out the side so you were down between the combine and the tractor on the right side cranking. There was a step ahead of the fender on the right, you had to get up on the tractor, step over the front of the fender, get down by the front wheel and crank the Fordson. Then get back up over the fender, throw it all in gear and away you went.

For those of you that are not farmers, a new Agco or John Deere combine has as much as a 36 foot header, travels 5-6 miles and hour down through a field and will cut as much grain before lunch time as all three of these early Gleaners would have cut in a week. A new combine today costs close to half a million dollars. Wheat right now is about $9 a bushel at the elevator, in 1925 it was about 30 cents and this combine with the Fordson probably cost around $1200 dollars complete.

That looks like a Massey 47, Chrysler Industrial 6 cylinder engine power, 10 or 12 foot header, probably 1945-48.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 03:39 am:

By the way, this is a pretty well known publicity/advertising shot for Gleaner. It was used on calendars and for advertising in the farm magazine of the 1920's, I think the copy of it I have is from about 1926. From Farm Mechanics.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Woods, Katy, Texas on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 09:18 am:

Jim, I would guess Stan nailed it. 1945-48 sounds about right for the ad.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jerome Hoffman, Hays KS on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 11:57 am:

Stan, in that mag is there any info as to where in Kansas the picture was taken?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Kelsey on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 12:22 pm:

Stan:

So, it was a draper header. Thanks for the explanation. Funny how we got away from them and they returned in the 1990s. The first Gleaner I rode in was a 1975 MH that Dad bought new. The next one was a 1981 N5, which I think listed just shy of $200,000. My mind is fuzzy on what Mom's tenant told me how much a new one costs, but I think they're close to $700,000 now. That's extremely difficult for a small farmer to afford, which is why Dad never upgraded. He just kept replacing parts, patching the header with Rex Rock, and rechroming the rub bars.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 12:26 pm:

There might be but I have about 100 copies of that magazine and I haven't looked at them for several years. Probably won't, either. Could be about anywhere in Kansas in wheat country, it all looks about the same.

Something else I was thinking about after I posted this last night. The grain tank on these was pretty big for the size of the combine, I think 18 to 20 bushel. Wheat weighs 60 pounds per bushel so if you had a pretty full tank you would have 1,000 or more pounds of weight on that side. That poor little Fordson was running the combine, pulling the load and holding up all that weight on the left wheel. No wonder that poor little Fordson was overwhelmed.

Also I noticed that they are not cutting Wheat, they are cutting Barley. Barley tended (in those days) to grow taller and look much better in a field. It is also lighter per bushel - 48 lbs, is easier to thresh and has lighter and looser straw. The chaff from the heads is easier to blow as it tends to shatter as opposed to just releasing the kernel from the shuck. These probably did pretty well in Barley and lighter crops like Oats. Not so well in the varieties of Wheat they had in those days. Not so many farms raised Wheat, Wheat has to be hauled to the elevator and sold and shipped as it is not good animal feed; Barley was usually fed on the farm to fatten hogs, Oats was popular feed for Horses - although it will give them Colic or founder them - and Spelt was raised for chicken feed. Until the larger trucks came along Wheat was more bother and work to raise and haul in to the elevator to sell and most farmers only raised Wheat on part of their crop land. Wheat is used to make bread for human consumption but has to be ground and made into flour to be used, Barley is used for making beer and for animal food, Oats is used for Oatmeal and Cheerios. Barley consumption went down tremendously during prohibition (1920-1933) as very little was used for Beer, many farmers turned to Wheat to make use of their land. Farm income plummeted as one of their cash crops was taken away. Prohibition changed farming a lot. Barley is also used to make Bourbon Whiskey, Rye, which is not much grown anymore, is used to make Rye Whiskey and Corn is used to make Corn Whiskey.

Budwiser/Anheiser Busch contracts for thousands of acres of a specific variety of Barley to be grown near Fairfield, Montana for their beer production. It pays pretty well and they have huge grain storage and shipping facilities there.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 12:32 pm:

Jim, that's why there are very few small farmers left. Like everything else, the economics of scale is in effect. If you have a $250,000 tractor and $200,000 air drill and fertilizer injector that will plant 200 acres a day you'd better have land enough to plant to make use of it or a bunch of oil wells pumping and sending checks home. Same with a 6 or 7 hundred thousand dollar combine. I don't know how a young couple would ever get started farming today unless they inherited the place and the machinery.

I went up to Boxelder several years ago just to watch them cut grain in a field there. There wer 7 brand new New Holland combines cutting, 5 tractors with grain tanks and 4 or 5 semi grain trucks waiting to load. Probably 10 million dollars worth of equipment then, it would be 12 or 15 million now.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dave Huson, Berthoud, Co. on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 01:08 pm:

In the Auctions around the Eastern Colorado plains they are still selling old not used for years combines with Model T motors installed on the upper part. I used to like to buy those motors when I lived in Eastern Colorado because they were mint as they were only used a few weeks out of the year. I may be wrong but as I remember (dangerous) the Transmissions did not even have bands in them. I have seen at least one with a distributor. The combines were just trash so sometimes the Auctioneer would just let you bid on the motor. By the way I have also bought mint T gas tanks off them.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dave Huson, Berthoud, Co. on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 01:18 pm:

If the combine motor was already off the combine you could always tell if the T motor came off a combine because they were often in a special cradle. Teh cradles were mostly alike and built real heavy. My brake in stand was built out of one of the cradles.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Kelsey on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 01:19 pm:

We only raised barley for a few seasons when it was required of the farm program. Dad and his brother hated cutting it because it was so itchy. I never noticed a difference because I'm allergic to both LOL. We have quite a few photos dating from the teens of my great-grandfather and his brother farming with pull machines and a team of horses cutting wheat. In the background are two TT trucks. The oldest rig we had on the ranch was a 1935 International C. Dad didn't remember the TT trucks, so his grandpa sold them long before Dad was born.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 01:34 pm:

Dave, a lot of the Gleaners had those T engines with Matco magneto ignition and a special flywheel, a special oil pan and a single plate dry clutch. I've bought a few of them over the years but they are few and far between anymore. The big advantage touted by Gleaner was that parts were available at low cost and if you had engine problems you could purchase an entire engine - short block - from any Ford dealer and be back in the field in hours instead of days. Gleaner used both T and A engines, the A engines had a Wico mag in place of the distributor. Some of the last ones to use Ford engines had a B engine with a balanced crank. Ford industrial engines are still popular. My swather (machine for cutting hay) has a Ford four cylinder industrial engine.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dexter Doucet on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 09:33 pm:

Stan and others, I'm anxious to know when the intial photo( of the thread) was likely taken? The t seems mid to early 20's.. Low radiator? .. Several of them fellas are wearing belts.. Early thirties? I like the straw boater. Sorry for bucking the trend of this thread.... If the combine attachment for the fordson didn't last long ( as per Stan's 1st post) it's arrival would date the Photo. Right?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Woods, Katy, Texas on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 09:51 pm:

As soon as I could reach the step to climb on that combine, I did. I wasn't even in Kindergarten, but I remember it well. My Uncle Ray (Dad's older brother) was also a rice farmer and had Massey combines like this one.

It is kind of odd, but it seemed the two brothers didn't want to copy each other. Both used Massey self propelled combines for a few years because that was all that was available in this area. My Uncle used Massey combines as long as he farmed and when he turned the farming over to his sons, they used Massey combines until they got out of farming. My Dad used John Deeres, starting in the mid fifties when J.Deere came out with the model 55R. My uncle used Case tractors. My Dad used Moline. My uncle drove Buicks and later, Cadillacs. My Dad drove Oldsmobiles and later Lincolns. My brother is still farming at 75, and uses Lexion combines. They are state of the art and I haven't priced a new one, but I bet they are over a half million a piece.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Sunday, April 07, 2013 - 11:40 pm:

Well, it's after the end of the center door, for sure. My guess would be 25 or 26.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dennis Henrichs on Monday, April 08, 2013 - 12:48 am:

Jim,

I grew up just north of you up 395 at the Adams county seat. Lots of similar memories. I hated barley. Had a beard when we started harvesting barley one year--shaved it off the first evening. Itch was killing me. I noticed too late that you were in Spokane. I am close by and we could have gotten together. Hopefully some other time.

Dennis


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Aaron Griffey, Hayward Ca. on Monday, April 08, 2013 - 01:00 am:

I remember in the summer of 1945 in north eastern Montana a rancher got just a few dollars less than a million for his wheat crop.
They said those new self combines took all day to go around the field one time.
I could not come close to understanding at that time how many acres the wheat ranch was.
It took a lot of trucks to haul the wheat from those combines fast enough to keep them moving.
Rye is the worst to be around when it is thrashed or combined.
I always had to quit and leave when they harvested rye as I itched so bad I could not do any work. Most people are not bothered by it too much.
When a farmer has to buy a new tractor or other farm machine the city folks see it as a luxory, like a new car or a trip to Bermuda or Europe.
They often fail to see it as an expense to stay in business.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Aaron Griffey, Hayward Ca. on Monday, April 08, 2013 - 01:17 am:

Anyone remember that large company, like a circus company, that had several combines and trucks that would move across the country combining crops for hire?
They travelled with their families, dozens of trucks, mobile homes, cooked their own meals and everything else. Something ...Town. or City. Ville?
It was often written up in magazines & papers of the day.
They would start out early in the summer in Texas and gradually move north into Canada as the crops were ready to harvest combing thousands of acres in a few days time and just keep moving.
There were not many combines at that time in the states where the ranches and farms were smaller. Those folks were still using threshing machines. They could hire the guys with combines to come in and get 'er done in no time.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Monday, April 08, 2013 - 02:17 am:

There are still a lot of custom combine companies. They start in Texas and work their way north to Canada as the crops mature. That's what was cutting in the fields at Boxelder where I went to take pictures several years ago.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Woods, Katy, Texas on Monday, April 08, 2013 - 02:20 am:

Aaron, I remember seeing traveling harvesters in the Texas panhandle. We never saw them on the Gulf coast because down here if a farmer needed help harvesting, usually there was a neighboring farmer whose crop was a few days earlier or later than another farmer. You called him up and he bought his equipment and crew and you paid him per machine per hour. Plus, In my Dad's case, my Uncle Ray's farm headquarters was only about a half mile away and two other Uncle's farms were no more than three miles away.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By John Page on Monday, April 08, 2013 - 03:25 am:

Dexter,

I think that the Fordor in the picture is a high radiator car. The moulding across the the cowl just below the windshield on the earlier low radiator cars were in a straight line . The later high radiator Fordor has a slight curve. Regards, John








Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Aaron Griffey, Hayward Ca. on Monday, April 08, 2013 - 09:58 pm:

Damn, this has been an interesting thread.
I would never have noticed the combines were mounted on Fordsons.
Stan needs to document all he knows about combines of the early days. I doubt if anyone else will.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - 01:40 am:

Waiting for my microwave to heat supper so I'll point out a couple more things about these combines. The grain door on the tank was too low for a truck, it looks to be only about high enough for a single box wagon but no higher -- maybe not even that high. So that was intended for sacking grain as opposed to loading it loose into a wagon. For years, farmers sacked grain, sewed the sack shut and loaded it on a wagon and hauled it in to sell. Not so much barley or wheat but peas, beans, lentils and other crops were sacked. Many of the pull type combines had a sacking platform and one man did nothing but sack and sew. On the larger combines one man sacked and one man sewed. The sacks were dropped off the platform on to the ground as the combine moved through the field and a crew came along and picked them up and loaded them on a wagon or in a truck to haul to market.

The grain from the tank on this combine would have been unloaded with the elevator that fills the tank, I think. You can see a funnel hanging down into the tank from the elevator, that funnel would have been swung out to the back, a door in the elevator raised and the grain would be carried up over the top and dropped into the funnel to go in the truck or wagon. The truck would have been backed in from the stubble side of the combine.

That is also why I am sure this is a staged publicity/advertising shot. No farmer would have cut grain with the grain tank on the grain side, they would have cut so the grain tank was on the stubble side, it makes it a lot easier to unload. But it wouldn't have shown Gleaner on the side of the grain tank like this shot does.

My guess would be, looking at the field behind them and how it is cut, that they were cutting from left to right, turned the machines around and pulled into the grain down behind the last wagon to get all lined up for the shot.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Woods, Katy, Texas on Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - 11:46 am:

Stan has a shape eye. I hadn't noticed that the tank and unloading elevator on the Gleaner was on the uncut field side. To unload, a vehicle would have to drive through uncut crop, mashing it down. Compare to the picture in the Massey ad; the tank and unloading elevator are clearly on the previously cut side. That's why combines always cut a field in a clockwise direction; and yes, Stan, rice was also sacked and sown shut in thresher days.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - 12:58 pm:

About 25 years ago, when there were still some small farm auctions here, I bought an Allis Chalmers All-Crop Harvester. It was in very nice condition and had the sacking platform and sacking funnel all built in for cutting and sacking crops. This one had been used for dry beans which used to be a fairly good crop along the river at Great Falls. I don't know if anybody grows beans anymore, the big mega farms along the Snake river in Idaho grow thousands of acres of them now. Anyway, this little combine was in mint condition, paint still nice, canvases good, etc. I paid a couple hundred bucks for it and towed it to Choteau and gave it to the threshing bee club there. They weren't much interested in it, it was too new for them at that time. I think they still have it in a building there. It was the All-Crop 60, 4 1/2 foot cutter bar, built to go behind a 35 HP tractor like an Allis WC or early WD. I have an Allis WD45 in mint condition that I picked up last fall at an auction, wish I had the combine to go behind it and some time to see if it would really cut beans. There used to be a lot of very small pull time and some small self propelled combines around. They were very popular with small farmers right after WWII and almost every farm had a 6 foot John Deere, a little Case, an IHC, an Allis or Oliver for cutting. When I was growing up we had a little Case with a 4 1/2 foot cutter bar. Last year I was at an auction near my ranch, they had a 1940's Oliver 10 foot pull type in very nice original condition, no rust, engine turned over and they had the canvases for it. I bid it up a ways and then let the scrapper have it. Too bad it went to scrap, that is where most of them have gone now.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - 01:37 pm:

Just for fun, here is my Allis WD 45 with a New Holland 276 square baler behind it, Not much hay last year.



Why not, here is my Ford 801.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - 03:23 pm:

Terry, after I think about it more, I'll bet that Massey was a Model 21 or 21A.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Randy Driscoll on Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - 04:58 pm:

Accessory power adjusted rear wheels on the 801.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - 05:02 pm:

Good eye! The only set of them I have ever seen for real. It also has factory power steering and the heavy duty front end and clutch. They must have been going to put a loader on it but never did. The blue overpaint that Ford required of any traded-in tractor in the 60's has fortunately pretty well washed off. I've been going to have it steam cleaned and see if it looks as much better as I think it should. It only has about 1800 hours on it according to the hour meter. (Which I don't believe unless I'm trying to sell it to you.) =)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Randy Driscoll on Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - 06:11 pm:

I will post a picture of my restored (for work) 641 Workmaster when I get it out of the shed; if the snow ever melts. Dang that global warming.
The 641 was painted Air Force yellow when I got it. The yellow paint was peeling and revealing a red hood. The red hood and frame had me scratching my head until I learned about the Workmaster series and it's color scheme.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By kep NZ on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 - 01:06 am:

Ford industrial engines are still popular? Does this mean i can go to a ford dealer and buy a model C engine? i wish... Or what about the D series diesel?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jay - In Northern California on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 - 12:24 pm:


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 - 12:34 pm:

How about that. An All-Crop harvester with a guy sacking ??? some kind of small grain. Looks like the first cut through the field. When the wind was behind you this was a dirty, nasty job. Like a lot of farming.

We didn't farm. My dad was pretty adamant about being ranchers, not farmers. His favorite: We don't dig in the damn dirt, damn German farmers can did in the damn dirt all they want, we don't dig in the damn dirt.

My mother's family was all German, several of them pretty well off farmers who told my dad more than once how he should be breaking up the land to plant grain instead of just letting the cows graze. I was too young to understand all the implications and ramifications of this. But we didn't dig in the dirt.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Harold Schwendeman - Sumner,WA on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 - 01:07 pm:

Stan and all:

This has been interesting reading. I'm just a "city kid" from Chicago and don't know much about farming or ranching. However, I did pick up a little from 4 years as a draftsman for International Harvester in Hinsdale, Illinois, and a bit more from my 10 years in Deer Lodge, Montana. I also learned a bit from my Dad who was a farm kid, born and raised on a farm in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and several teen-aged years on a farm near Forest Grove, Oregon.

One thing I learned from my Dad was that there was something between "rivalry" and out-and-out "hatred" between cattle ranchers and sheep men. Dad said that basically, the root of it was due to the fact that sheep eat the grass absolutely right down to the ground, and cattle don't!

Wonder how much of that animosity between them still exists?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 - 03:20 pm:

Many of the big ranches in Montana were built on sheep and later converted to cattle when the market for wool started dropping after WWI. The reality is that sheep can utilize grassland that cattle will starve to death on and cattle can lose a calf and you have fed them for a year for no return. Sheep had two good crops a year, lambs and wool.

There is still a pretty good market for lamb and wool, sheep are good for a small operation as they are so much easier to handle and so much less dangerous than cattle are for smaller women and kids to handle. Pop can be off working and mom and the kids can stay home and lamb and take care of the sheep.

The proliferation of wolves in western Montana will probably be the death knell of the small sheep operations as it is becoming less and less possible to graze sheep without a herder with them 24/7. There is nothing a town dog or Wolf likes better than the taste of fresh lamb. Wolves are terrifying in the flesh and one in the middle of a hunt or killing a lamb is hard to stop. They usually hunt in packs, if a pack gets in to your sheep you are out of business - they will kill ten for every one they eat. So most sheep now are being raised in fenced pastures close to the house in western Montana, no so much so in eastern Montana, where coyotes and town dogs are still more of a problem.

The wolf territory is expanding by 50-100 miles a year to the east as western Montana, northern Idaho and northwest Wyoming now have all the wolves the wildlife can feed. They are going to eat, they will eat whatever is easiest to kill, sheep are easier to kill than Elk or Deer, there are very few Elk left to eat, you know what they are going to eat next. I wouldn't want to be trying to raise calves or lambs anywhere in the southern or western part of the state. Wolves don't like open country like eastern Montana so much but if they get hungry they will be there, too. Estimates from Fish/Wildlife Parks range from 650 to 800 wolves now in Montana, about 60% females. The hunting season last winter took about 150 of them, that's only pups from 30 to 40 females, they will replace them when they start to whelp in the next month and the other 300 females will have pups, too. It's a dilemma that nobody seems to have an answer to. The money for livestock depredation is pretty well gone. Who wants to pay for all the calves and lambs that are dead? Nobody now. All those people who were going to pay when the wolf recovery program started don't have much to say now.

The outfitters who used to run Elk hunts are just about all out of business. There aren't enough Elk left to hunt. The out of state hunters who used to come here in droves in the fall are going someplace else to hunt where there are still Elk to shoot.

I think the animosity between the sheep and cattle ranchers now is pretty well gone, they are working together to try to survive in today's reality. Most of the big operations are now exclusively cattle, mostly Black Angus. Cattle prices are good, numbers are the lowest since the 50's, sheep prices are good but not as good as cattle. Wool is better than it was a few years ago but most wool used in clothing today is Merino wool from Australia and New Zealand used to make socks.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By kep NZ on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 - 11:32 pm:

No money in sheep now either.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Roar Sand on Monday, April 15, 2013 - 09:19 am:



Ran across this old ad. It is in Finnish, which I don't understand, so I can't add anything, but I thought it was interesting.
Roar


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jay - In Northern California on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 - 10:41 am:


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jay - In Northern California on Thursday, December 19, 2013 - 11:34 pm:

I enjoyed this thread and thought I'd bump it before the 2013 forum is locked at years end.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Aaron Griffey, Hayward Ca. on Friday, December 20, 2013 - 02:20 am:

I enjoyed it too.
Gotta read Stan's post again.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Friday, December 20, 2013 - 11:01 am:

Since it's about 5 below out and I'm finishing the first pot of coffee, I'll add one more thing to this thread before it goes away.

One of the great things about a self propelled combine like these as opposed to the pull type shown in the last photo is that they can "open" a field without knocking down any grain while doing it (by having to run the tractor around the outside of the field in a counter clockwise direction) before turning around and cutting in the clockwise direction with the header to the right of the tractor. Another was that the combine with the header in front of the tractor will turn a 90 degree corner if the combine has wheel brakes or it can easily backed up during a corner rather than having to swing out on the corners and come back to the cut. Most operators would leave a corner cut with a pull type and then come back to cut out the corner. The alternative to that is to swing wide out and then come back in to the cut. It takes a lot of time to do that, four corners or more on every field, four swings on every round. If you don't cut the corner it looks like hell and leaves grain in the field, if you do cut out the corner you are running the already cut straw into the cutter bar and just asking it to plug up the header. Cutting grain is just like a trucker making miles or a machinist turning stock, time is money and the grain needs to be cut as soon as possible when it is ready. Also, a self propelled combine only needs one engine, one operator and is easier and probably faster to move because it will go through a smaller gate than a pull type will. You used to see a lot of "combine gates" in the fences in Montana and Dakota where an extra big gate had been made to get the combine in and out of a field. Now, very few fields are fenced that are growing grain, the new combines leave pretty much nothing in the field so there is not much to graze after harvest.

Off to the shop.

Thanks for posting this again, Jay. I sure enjoyed this thread.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Fred Schrope - Upland, IN on Friday, December 20, 2013 - 09:02 pm:

Stan and whoever else.......the first combine I ever had was a John Deere 12A pulled with a 70 John Deere. I always went around the field clockwise and left the outside swath for last......then a 45 John Deere self propelled. Man that was nice. I still have the engine off that combine. The only thing I disliked about the self propelled ........you sure eat a lot of dust. With a pull type, at least part of the time you were ahead of it.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Friday, December 20, 2013 - 10:04 pm:

They sold a John Deere 45 at an auction I was at in Lewistown a couple years ago for $100. It had a 10 foot header and all the canvases were with it. It had been bought new and used to cut less than 30 acres a year since then. Only combine the guy ever owned. I would have bought it just as a collector but it was 200 miles from home and I don't have any place to keep anything like that. It would just set out and go to pieces. Finally a neighbor bought it to keep it from being scrapped. He fired it up and drove it home.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jim Weir on Saturday, December 21, 2013 - 11:56 am:

This is a stationary '20s McCormick that is run each Labor Day weekend @ the Jack Creek Ranch on hiway 46 a dozen miles or so West of Templeton Ca. It is powered by a Cat 30. The friend forking the barley is John Gleason from Santa Margarita but the lady is unknown to me.

There are many antiques on display and many working. There was a binder working and several plows and disks pulled by period tractors.



Jim Weir


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Michael Deichmann, Blistrup, Denmark on Saturday, December 21, 2013 - 06:44 pm:

The Graested Steam Fair 2014 started this august where we harvested the wheat to be used at the fair in the threshing machine powered by a steam engine. I was there in my Ford and we got a picture:


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jay - In Northern California on Thursday, December 26, 2013 - 11:15 am:

Here's the lyrics to the song I thought of when I first saw this photo. John Denver was one of my favorite musicians of the day.

Had an uncle named Matthew
He was his fathers only boy
Born just south of Cobly, Kansas
He was his mothers pride and joy

Yes, and joy was just the thing that he was raised on
Love is just the way to live and die
Gold is just a windy Kansas wheatfield
And blue is just a Kansas summer sky

And all the stories that he told me
Back when I was just a lad
All the memories that he gave me
All the good times that he had

Growin up a Kansas farmboy
Life was mostly havin fun
Ridin on his Daddys shoulders
Behind a view beneath the sun

Yes, and joy was just the thing that he was raised on
Love is just the way to live and die
Gold is just a windy Kansas wheatfield
And blue is just a Kansas summer sky

Well, I guess there were some hard times
And Im told some years were lean
They had a storm in forty-seven
A twister came and stripped them clean

He lost the farm and lost his family
He lost the wheat and lost his home
But he found a family Bible
Faith as solid as a stone

Yes, and joy was just the thing that he was raised on
Love is just the way to live and die
Gold is just a windy Kansas wheatfield
And blue is just a Kansas summer sky

So he came to live at our house
And he came to work the land
He came to ease my Daddys burden
And he came to be my friend

So, I wrote this down for Matthew
And its for him the song is sung
Ridin on his Daddys shoulders
Behind a view beneath the sun

Yes, and joy was just the thing that he was raised on
Love is just the way to live and die
Gold is just a windy Kansas wheatfield
And blue is just a Kansas summer sky

Yes, and joy was just the thing that he was raised on
Love is just the way to live and die
Gold is just a windy Kansas wheatfield
Blue is just a Kansas summer sky

Words and music by John Denver


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Donnie Brown on Sunday, December 29, 2013 - 07:43 pm:

Dennis .. You mentioned something about "color" back at the start of this thread. A freind of ours did this for me. It took awhile as she had to learn how to do it. We were unsure of the Gleaners colors, so did the best we could. Ill post the color pic in a seperate thread also.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Donnie Brown on Sunday, December 29, 2013 - 07:50 pm:

gleaner colorized


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