JohnB my tater digger pics

It warmed up to 14 above,so I walked down and took a few pictures of Grandpa's old digger. I found the IHC emblem on one of the sprockets. The trucks that go under the front of it got broke a long time ago. Dad used to use a clevis and hooked it direct to the tractor drawbar,then set it over so the narrow front didn't run over the row.

Nice pics! Thanks.

Randy, looks like a pretty good set of F&H rims in the background. May be worth a few bucks more than scrap.
Neat picture of the digger!!

I wish they were both in good shape. I'd like to use them for duals on my other 70,but there's a small piece of the casting broke on one of them where it clamps to the axle. At least I think it's broke. That or there's a piece missing that I need to find,but it looks like a jagged break.

I could sure use that about fifteen minutes a year! Just enough to dig the one row of potatoes in my garden. A spading fork gets old real quick!

By the time you got the point on the front shined up,you might be wishing you were digging by hand again. lol

(quoted from post at 15:47:16 01/23/13) I could sure use that about fifteen minutes a year! Just enough to dig the one row of potatoes in my garden. A spading fork gets old real quick!

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hen we were doing 1 or 2 rows of small garden potatoes, we dropped a middle buster below them & rolled them out, many on top & others it lose sand. Worked pretty good for lot of years.

Boy , seeing those pics , sure bring back a lot of memories of my childhood . My Dad had one just like it . He took the front wheels section off & made a bracket so we could just drop a pin thru it into our Ford tractor drawbar . Before I was strong enough to use the handles to raise the digger , Dad had me drive the tractor down each row . I loved watching those Taters come out of the soil , up the chain & out the back onto the ground . While we dug a few rows , my other brother & sisters picked the spuds up & into baskets .We"d stop after a few rows , grab baskets & help pick . After all baskets were full & sitting , we"d grab Gunnie sacks & dump the taters into the bags .After all taters were picked , we"d go back to digging again . With 11 kids , we stored many bushels in a basement bin for winter use . I actually enjoyed gardening . Dad even had an old horse drawn tater planter he converted to be tractor pulled . Thanks for posting the pics . I can"t wait for warm weather so you cn get back to gardening (I"m envious). God bless , Ken

I use disc hillers then when digging use a irrigation shovel rolls them rite out. The A has the rear tooling for the veggie model so the tool bar is a great place to fasten the shovel.

I am looking for one in good shape to demonstrate at our show saw it on a video looked like a croud pleaser

Looks like mine. But mine had green paint and I couldn't find and real markings. I am going to rig up a hitch this summer and a hydraulic cylinder. Heres a pic of mine and the Ford we used to dig this year.

Dad bought an old planter too. I don't remember using it more than a few times. Pretty sure the junk man ended up with it. It sat out back here til I cleaned up about 30 years ago. Had a clump of boxelder trees growing up through it. I cut'em down and pulled the stump,planter and all and hauled them down to the edge of the swamp.

You couldn't prove by me,but I've been told that Grandpa had just bought a new one when the barn burned in 36 and that it was in there and went up in the fire.

Those old tractors & implements are very intriging . I wish I had the old things now that i remember seeing as a kid . At my Dads Moms farm , I remember they had an old Model T converted to a tractor hoopie . It had chains on the rears . My cousins that lived on the old farm also was allowed to drive it around . They'd take me & my younger brother up over the hill on the old rough untravelable road to an old apple orchard & berry patch so we could pick for Gramma to make pies . I can still mentally hear that old engine with no exhaust & the whining of the gears in the tranny & rear end as we bounced around from those chains on the rear duals . Riding on the old hay rake , pitching hay onto the hay wagon then into the hay mound ontop of the barn . Gee it feels good just remanising old times . These kids today have no ideas about good times even tho it involved hard work at times . I never did get to milk any of Grammas cows . She wouldn't allow a city slicker as she called me & my siblings since we didn't actually live on a farm . Our home sat on a lot , but Dad used a lot of farm land that the owners didn't use for farming anymore . I still didn't consider myself as a city slicker due the fact Dad produced all our needed garden stuff to feed us all year round . Acres & acres of sweet corn , taters , & most all veggies . I didn't really have a childs life - persae . I knew what work was & still know how its done & its rewards . As Dad used to say : blisters & belt marks make a boy into a man . In todays society , Dad would've rotted in prison for the way he treated me as a child .I have a pics of us digging taters somewhere . God bless , Ken

Thanks for posting your digger pictures rrlund. I like looking at the iron in the background too.

SweetFeet is going to like that picture!!

Most farmers years ago had a potato planter and digger. Gave them a little extra money in the fall time selling excess crop to the town people or townies as we used to call them. At age fourteen we could get our working papers from school and when the local big potato farmers need help because the fields were to wet to use the mechanical picker, they broke out the old two row diggers and the school, shuttled us by bus to pick them up. Got 3 cents a bushel made a lot of money.. LOL and NO I don't want to go back to that time. It was fun back then, maybe age has something to do with it..

I've never seen one of those diggers around here, northern Illinois. When I was a kid in the early 50's my dad and brothers used a homemade corn planter with a shallow wooden box, 2 x6 foot maybe, a piece of round down spout from the box down behind the openers, a brother rode on each corner dropping spuds down the pipes, each had a short broom stick in case a pipe plugged.
They got dug with an old one bottom horse plow, don't remember what you called it, the dirt rolled both ways and it was pulled by the Super C.
They must of planted at least a couple of acres. That was 60 years ago and I remember that better than what I did yesterday.

Ya,there was a guy here who was known to be the cheapest man who ever lived. He paid kids a dollar a day to pick up potatos. The day they finished up one year,they didn't have a full day in,so he sat down and figured out that he owed them each 87 cents for a days work. Instead of giving them a 13 cent bonus,he went over to a neighbor who was the rural mail carrier,knowing he'd have change from selling stamps. He got change so he could give each of the kids the 87 cents.

I had one of them but the one i had was pto driven, nothing wrong with it just never used it so it went to the scrap yard this last summer, week later after advertising to sell it locally guy i work with cames up and says hey i hear you have a pto driven digger...i say i had, its in china now....