Horse farming and tractor farming

SVcummins · Mar 11, 2022

How big of farm did you have to have to buy a Waterloo boy
or a titan or a cross motor ? Grandpa was born in 1913 and
he never have a tractor until he was married and was farming
on his own it was a McCormick not sure the model thankfully
he finally came to his senses and I dont have to farm with red
tractors but thats not the question .

sms · Mar 11, 2022

My grandpa had 160 acre rocky, hilly farm. Born about 1900. But he had to give up his dairy herd because he had a bad heart at a young age. He then had sheep and later chickens. Only tractor he ever used on the farm was a Farmall A. Did have a doodlebug. He used horses in his younger years.

SVcummins · Mar 11, 2022

Great pictures thanks . Grandpa got his first tractor about 1945 or 46 . I have wanted a team of horses for as long as Ive known what a horse was never could get grandpa to give in and let me have a team though he failed to see the romance in it after walking behind them for 25 some odd years :

larry@stinescorner · Mar 11, 2022

great pictures!!!

sms · Mar 11, 2022

After grandpa passed I lived on the farm for about 10 years. How it looked about 1990. I don't even want to drive by now as it is all developed.

larry@stinescorner · Mar 11, 2022

the first building looks like a spring house for water?,the third building looks like a brooderhouse?What was the second building,,maybe a butcherhouse?

mtf · Mar 11, 2022

This is my grandfather on the first A sold in my county. He owned 100 acres and farmed a little more. I'm still farming that same land.

Jimmydog · Mar 11, 2022

I think I've mentioned this before on this site; great grand dad farmed 600 acres up at the tippity top of the mitten (10-15 miles SE of the bridge). Around 1950 he got his first tractor, a year or two later he added another. Not long after that he sold the horses and farmed 400 acres.

They were John Deere's but just which models I haven't a clue, I was just a pup back then with no interest in such things. There isn't anybody around these days that would know either. About the only thing I remember is the flat type fenders on both of them, and one was a little bigger than the other. I like to think they were a model A and B, mostly because those are what I have.

The old boy lived to a ripe old age: at 90 they had to take his cows away, at 92 they had to take him off the farm, at 94 he bought the farm. Always heard that after they sold his cows he went down hill pretty quickly.

JD

Donald in MN · Mar 11, 2022

my grandfather was born in 1903. he had to quit school when he was in fifth grade to work on the farm while great grandpa worked in the lumber camps in northern minnesota to help pay for the farm. when grandpa was a little older he told me he worked for a farmer between dover and chatfield that had a 400 acre farm. grandpa said that he had to plow on that farm with a mogel or titan it took him all fall to do it.grandpa became a barber in 1930 and bought a farm in 1942. he started farming with a team of horses and a used 39 farnall h with no hydraulics or electric but it did have rubber. he sold that farm and bought a 240 in 48 and a brand new M which i still have. in 52 he bought a wd9 as he was renting more ground. then he bought a 460 and a 560. the last tractor he bought was an 806 in 68. he was running 500 acres at that time.he sold the M to my dad and the wd9 to my dads younger brother.

SVcummins · Mar 11, 2022

A wood grainery with a steel roof ? To bad farmland gets turned into houses and crap wish we could make more land and less people

crsutton81 · Mar 11, 2022

Grandaddy on dad's side where the home farm is was born in 1916. The farm is
an 80 acre and now on approximately the 251st year of being farmed by a direct family member. He quit school in the 8th grade when his dad died of what we later found out was diabetes in 1929. Being the oldest son in the family, he took over the farm at that time. He farmed with horses and mules until he bought his first tractor in 1940 which was a new Farmall H on rubber. He said it was light years ahead of looking at the transmission of a mule all day, but the H on the tractor didn't stand for heaven either as it took 2 men a half a day to change it over from 1 setup to another with cultivators, pickers, and such. He said he would start at first light with the mules and plow non stop till dark and maybe cover 3 acres a day with a 1 bottom breaking plow. Also said he could thump a clod of dirt across where he'd been all day working. He later added the Farmall 100 new that we still have along with a new 140 and a JD model 50 which was a problem child. I think that one broke him from the JD fever of ever wanting another JD. More new tractors were added as necessary as time went on. He continued on till his health declined in the early 90s. By that time dad was a partner and me a helper and have continued on.

Richard G. · Mar 11, 2022

My Grandpa in this country was born in 1882 and farmed with mules all his life.
2 of his sons bought the farm when he died in 1952.
They farmed with a JD B at first and then bought a JD A and then a Ford 8N that was my Dad's first tractor and still used them till they retired in the mid 80's.
They gave me the JD A and the 8N.
I still use the 8N all the time.
Grandpa never drove the tractors or any vehicles.
I remember the last mule going away about 1955.
Richard in NW SC

Mike(NEOhio) · Mar 11, 2022

Fil farmed 125 ac. but about half that was wooded so he had some off-site fields. He had a McC 10-20 on steel at one time. His last team went in '56.

Janicholson · Mar 11, 2022

With 4 good horses and at least 4 people in the mix working 12 hours a day (some overlap in generations and some being 2 10 year olds counting for 1 grownup) 250 acres could be done. If milking, less acres. 1906 my grand had 120 with 24 Holsteins 2 Morgens, and a Mogel (he didn't drive it) By 1950 there were 200 an M Farmall, and a 10-20 McCormick Deering. I was 1 year old. Jim

sms · Mar 11, 2022

Second building was originally the ice house, on the end by the spring house there was a well for milk cans, water piped in from the spring to keep milk cool. The round building was a water tank that they moved from somewhere. Grandpa couldn't figure out how to cut the top of the roof rafters so he took a round block of firewood and put it in the peak to nail the rafters to it stuck up so he put a tin pail over the top. Laughed about it when asked. There was also a water trough there to water the horses, great water, many people stopped for water

Bruce from Can. · Mar 11, 2022

My mothers father, born in 1887, homestead in South Saskatchewan. They family eventually had a section and a half. He had two sons. Mother said they had enough work horses that the three men could go to the field in the morning each with a 4 horse hitch, and head out after the noon meal each with a fresh 4 horse hitch. My Grandfather never owned a tractor, and when his boys bought a IH 10 20 , he wouldnt even look at it , and never drove it.

db4600 · Mar 11, 2022

That depends on the size of the Titan or Crossmotor.

Great Grandpa was a herdsman on the Dalrymple farm. Read up on the Bonanza farms.

redforlife · Mar 11, 2022

Back in the production era of the waterloos and titans, I don't think number of acres had a whole lot to do with it. I think alot more factors came into play when people took the plunge into buying a tractor. How much money they had, how many teenaged working sons they had, how much belt driven work they had to do, and how fond they was of modern technology had way more to do with it, than number of acres they had. By saying this, I'm not saying that number of acres was not a factor at all. There was just alot of more bigger factors at the time.
Grandpa never had a tractor on the farm untill the late 40s or early 50s. Not by choice. He simply couldn't afford it. He would of probably got one way sooner than that. But he didn't happen to have one by the time the dust bowl hit. And then it was just that long before he was on his feet financially to be able to own a tractor.

Steve@Advance · Mar 11, 2022

When I see one of those big steamers or an Oil Pull, I wonder how it would have been practical to have one sitting on the farm for seasonal use while the payments went on year round.

Was it possible they were owned by someone or a company that provided hired work with the tractor and a crew of laborers?

Those tractors look like they would be maintenance intensive and more than your average farmer used to horses could handle. I'm sure mechanics were few and far between back then.

NY 986 · Mar 11, 2022

The original 60 acre farmstead that dad's father started out with had a Fordson on it when he bought it during the early 1920's. I guess threshing or pressing (stationary baler) was custom done by traveling outfits. Dad recalls a gentleman who thrashed red kidney beans using a JD D during the 1940's.

coonie minnie · Mar 11, 2022

I'd agree with redforlife, there's more to it than acres. How much you were into technology, conversely how much you were into horses, what your labor situation was, how much free capital you had, if you had a lot of belt work to do in the off season- sawmill, etc. or if you wanted to be part of the neighborhood threshing ring or not. A lot changed with WWI- labor got tight as men went to war, crop prices took off, the Fordson tractor came on the scene as a low cost tractor.

Great grandpa on dad's side bought his first big tractor in 1935, a Farmall F30. It was a response to the '34 drought... he didn't need to feed so many horses. Might have also been to keep his kids interested, too.

Other side of the family, mom's dad, was a true Percheron guy. He bred draft horses, bought and sold them, it was his true love. But even he bought a tractor in 1941- a JD A, which my cousin still has.

Bill(Wis) · Mar 11, 2022

When my Grandfather started farming in 1901 he used 3 teams of horses and 2 hired men. When he bought a Fordson tractor in about 1917 he only needed 2 teams of horses and 2 hired men. When we got our brand new 1936 WC Allis Chalmers that reduced the horses to 1 team and 2 hired men. When we added a WD Allis Chalmers in 1949, the horses went away and we had 1 or sometimes 2 hired men plus me and my brother.

redforlife · Mar 11, 2022

I'm not really so sure that you can throw steam engines and titan 10 20s into the same category.
Most steam engines (in my area back in the day) were owned by multiple people. Whether that be a pair of brothers, or two or three neighbors, or whatever. And who ever owned a steam engine seemed to do A LOT of custom work with it. Especially thrashing. And would own thier own thrashing machine to go along with it that stayed with and used in conjunction with the steam engine.
It's my opinion that the production and sales of titan 10 20s and
waterloo's, were angled towards individual farmers who couldn't afford the larger steam engine. Many steam engine thrashers converted to the oil pulls, and then later to the larger tractors for the convenience of using them over steam.
In my area atleast, I know if I could go back in time to 1920, I'd be more apt to see an individual farm having its own titan 10 20, and not it's own steam engine.

redforlife · Mar 11, 2022

Sound like there was no reduction of hired men untill you and your brother came along.

coonie minnie · Mar 11, 2022

It's my take that it was a bit like one neighbor owning a big forage harvester, and several other families working together to supply labor, teams of horses, etc.

The house my wife and I live in was settled by a family that moved there in 1844, and stayed til 1957. At one point, they owned one of the stam tractors in the neighborhood, and went quite far to do custom threshing. I'm guessing the season lasted awhile. There was also a small sawmill on the property as well, and I'm guessing they used the steamer for that, too.

There was also a story that a neighboring threshing crew would speak in the local bar about vandalizing the tractor kept on what's now our place. They would joke about putting some dynamite in the flues! The story was our guy ran the engine home every night!

Bill(Wis) · Mar 11, 2022

There was an automatic reduction of 2 hired men in November of 1940 when ours, brothers, were called to active duty with their National Guard unit (32d Infantry Division). We grew up in a hurry. Fortunately, my father was able to hire a part-time hired man who was not yet of draft age

Paul from MI · Mar 11, 2022

Dad took over the farm in 196 from grandpa. No tractor, only one team, farm was 21 acres. He worked in town until 1930 when he built chicken house for 2,000 layers. The old barn burned and he kept his team at a neighbors until 1938 when he bought his first tractor, an Allis Chalmers B. He replaced it with another Allis Chalmers B with starter, hydraulic, & lights in 1948, which I still have. He added a used 1941 John Deere H in 1958, those were the only tractors he ever owned in almost 50 years of farming.

Horse farming and tractor farming

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