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dpb

On 11/17/2014 5:14 PM, wrote:
....

A neighbour back on the farm when I was a teenager used a chisel
plough and a one-way disk. We used a mouldboard plough. The chisel
really made his big tractor bark!!! I pulled 3 bottoms with a 44
Massey, and 2 with a 540 Cockshutt. , the '49 44 outpulled the
lightweight 540 almost 2:1. The neighbour had a "big" ford (I think it
was a 1965 5000 D? About half again the horsepower of the 44, which
was about half again the power of the 540.

The one-way was a prime factor in the Dirty-30s being so dirty -- it was
about the only tool used back then out here and while very efficient had
the distinct disadvantage in dry years and a windy climate with sandy
soil of turning all the residue over and breaking the ground up into
very fine particles. With no ground cover to speak of and no
significant clodding, wind erosion was inevitable and once started,
impossible to stop w/o serious rain and a let up of the wind long enough
to establish cover again. That didn't happen for about five years back
then.

The chisel, otoh, doesn't bury the residue and creates clods in damp
soil, even in the sand here if not done to excess. Both of those are
far more resistant to blowing.

Earliest we had when I was large enough to do anything were Farmall M
and 400. The M was roughly 45 belt hp, the 400 about 40 or so drawbar.
We also at that time had Cat 22s that did row crop work with; pulled a
3-row JD lister and cultivator with them.

After the dry 50s broke in '58, upgraded to a Case 930 wheatland (90
drawbar roughly) and Farmall 560. The latter was a real disappointment
and didn't last long before got the first 4000-series JD. Grandad had a
little WD-45 Allis he used when he got where couldn't handle the M or
400 any longer but didn't want to quit entirely. Had a full line of
3-pt 8-ft equipment for it including a spring chisel. Having so much
equipment, Dad bought a D17 and I did a _lot_ of row crop with it all
thru high school. I keep looking for a decent one of them; for
nostalgia. They're just cute plus make a real nice little front loader
tractor although now they're too short for even the small truck so don't
have hardly any functional use for one...even the JD 4440 w/ loader can
barely reach top row of tractor-trailer to load the front bales over the
drivers. It'll handle the drop bed section easily but that other 8" is
an effort--gotta' be sure to pick the base up at the very bottom edge
and hope it's not wrapped too loose...

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