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I was thinking about these kind of questions that come up here while cutting the field next to my house, it was about 4-5 feet tall, mostly grasses, orchard and the like, would have made decent hay, also had some weeds within the grasses in some places. Conditions were ideal, been dry the last week. It was certainly a thick growth, my blades were sharp and tractor was running good, '55 Ford 850, propane powered, (supposed to be 45 HP + or - ) with an SE-6 Rhino (6'-0") rotary cutter. I had it set low and while pulling the hills, it was all this tractor had to keep up, also left some rough areas as I kpe the mower low. If I had left it up high, probably not so hard to keep up. Definitely hard work when in tall grasses and the like, when it's knee high or less, I can run 2nd or 3rd gear with the same mower on a low setting. I had let the grasses top out and seed, seems to thicken up and has taken over where weeds have been, have no idea if that works, but at this height even in dry conditions it's tha hardest work this tractor does every year, I'm thinking I ought to pick up a sickle for areas like this, we had a side mounted one on a 64 4000 and it seemed to be less work for the tractor. My neighbor has a new JD batwing type that he pulls with one of his larger diesel JD's, no way a small tractor would run it, that is for sure. Sounds like he's got his hands full keeping up with that much acreage the way it's set up and trying to run a business, might want to see what alternatives are to avoid so much cutting, even with a larger tractor and mower, still takes time to do it, kind of good to get some seat time but.... I can recall trying to keep up with similar acreage here, farmer would let it set for several years then want to use it again and I'd have to cut every field with heavy weeds and some brush, using a similar sized rig, would take me at least a week, last time he stopped using those fields, they never got cut again and are now wooded, took 20 years.
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