Doing alot with a little

My grandpa says that he and his six brothers plowed, disked, planted and cultivated 100 acres of cotton, in the 50's with one farmall cub. He said the tractor was run day and night and was only turned off to refuel. After 5 years of that, they added a "big" tractor. An allis "RC".

Before that we would cover thousands of acres a year with a 656 and a 56 6 row plate planter.

Used to put up well over a 1500 acres of hay a year with just an H and a 240 doing all the mowing and a 656 baling with a 440 baler. 90% of that hay was picked up by hand and stacked on two 2 ton trucks and hauled to various barns and restacked by hand (no electricity). Winter of '83 the cattle herd was sold and the same hay was stacked (by hand) in cattle semis for their return trips to Tennessee and North Dakota. Carrying hay bales the length of a trailer while bent over (5' possum trailers usually still full of frozen cow XXXX) was one job that really sucked. Could get about 600 bales per trailer.

I think I know what he is trying to say.

Remember how at the end of the day, that 20 acres felt like 200? :>)

Allan

Does the brome and bluestem regrow or is that a one time deal a year? This may help some of us make sense of 1500 acres a year.

Granted there is some streatch in there somewhere - 81 or 82 a pull type swather was bought, never was to impressed by it. To properly cure the hay it still needed to rolled and usually two swaths made into one. The 440 baler moved at 6 to 7 MPH. Rake - rakes moved at what ever speed the field would bear. The H pulled a 9' sickle bar mower and the 240 pulled a 7' - both balanced head mowers. Started each season with new ledger plates and new sections in all sickles (average two a day per mower). We ran 7 days a week 14-16 hours a day - half day Sunday.

And, it would probably take that WC all season just to drive across the 700 acres. :>)

Allan

--->Paul