Plowing with the R pics

I did a little plowing along a field border where the grass was creeping in a little too far. The R was struggling in second gear pulling a 4-16's Deere plow. I even had to shift to granny a few times if I wanted to keep it at 8" plowing depth. The front end was barely touching the ground sometimes.

I cheated with the first pass though, I pulled it with the 4650 with auto steer to get the first pass straight, then the R took over after that. The 4650 was quite a contrast, it's considered small today at 160 HP as far as field tractors go and it loafed along part throttle at 4.2 MPH. The R was king of the hill in the Deere line in 1954 and it couldn't hardly pull it.
Making some smoke. The soil here is about as black as it gets here on my farm.

A little better forward view. The temperature was about perfect for plowing with an open tractor.

Rear view. Not the most level job of plowing, I should have taken this picture in higher, lighter soil where it plowed better. Doesn't help that I'm stuffing an 18.4 width tractor tire into a 14" furrow.

The plowing outfit. Nothing spectacular but I'll show it to you anyway. Now I can put it away for awhile. I've had my 'fix'.

That is a 4-14's plow, not 4-16's, whew!

Looks like you were having fun!

That is a good trick for straight rows, I just get distracted to much for straight rows.

Looks like fun!

Really brings back memories, Dad and I did a lot of plowing with his 2 R's. Wish I could have been there! Would love to make a couple of rounds! Good looking outfit.

I think it did pretty good for 48 PTO horsepower !

Jim, I have a 3/16 trailer plow that I pull with my 720 Diesel. A few years ago when the Threshermen's Show featured John Deere, I took it over to plow with. The ONLY place that I couldn't pull it in 4th gear. You have some different soil over there.

Thanks for the pics. We had a R back in the day. I have old
video from the 50s of us pulling two 14ft IH drills. It got traded
for a 5010 in 1964.

Thanks for sharing .....I have vivid memories of farming with a JD "R" and a JD "AR"

Bob..

Agreed!!

Looks like you had a good day with your tractor.

Hard to beat the good time working one of these old relics.

Thanks for sharing your photos with us.

SWEET, almost makes me want to start farming with two cylinders again lol. I bet that big tire does crowd a 14 inch furrow huh. For rolling hilly ground you just cant beat a pull plow. When we farmed one year I had a 720 Diesel with 4 x 14 pull plow and the wife drove her 730 El Start diesel with a 3 x 16 mounted. Our furrows werent identical but we did okay.

GREAT PICS, THANKS

John T

Fun story and pictures. Thanks for posting it.

A little history; this R was bought new in 1954 by my step mother's dad and uncle in Fessenden North Dakota. A 39 D was traded for the R. The serial number is 250 away from the last R made. It worked land east of Fessenden until the middle 60's when her dad retired from farming. When the machinery sale was held in 1989 or 1990 the R was sitting in a small building and had not been run for an estimated 13 years. When we pulled it out of the shed in preparation for the sale I put it in gear and carefully pushed in the clutch to see if the engine was free. Not only was it free but it immediately started and sprang to life. We threw in a new battery, I cleaned the pony motor points and we had a working pony, it was as easy as that. One downer was a radiator completely packed full of rat nest as the radiator cap was left off for all those years. I bought it on that sale and when I got it home I found a leaky rusted through radiator. Rust? The core was steel instead of copper, I assume because of the Korean War.

In North Dakota it pulled a four bottom plow, packer and small grain drill all in one pass. I doubt if the plow was sunk in all that deep though and the soil was looser in North Dakota than it is here on my farm. The tires were fully loaded and it had three weights per wheel on top of the calcium in the wheels. I drained the calcium not long after I got it and it still has plenty of traction here in Iowa.

As a side note, when we were preparing for the sale, an old neighbor told me he remembered hearing the R start up at 6:00 sharp in the morning during field work season. My step mom's dad and his brother owned and farmed 9 quarters so this tractor saw quite a few hours in the twelve or so years it was used to farm with. The hour meter has over 6000 hours and doesn't work so I know it had at least 500 hours per year put on the clock. The engine is worn, it used three quarts per day one time when I plowed with it for a full day but it still starts right up and runs like a top.

I'm not from ND, but from the pictures I've seen of the plow/seeder hookups, they didn't plow nearly as deep as you were. In that day, you wouldn't plow that deep here, either. But as mentioned below, for a
49 hp tractor, she did pretty good!

In North Dakota, plowing 8" might have meant no crop because the ground would be dried out too deep. Around here I don't think some farmers plowed very deep either judging by how fast they were going. They might brag about going 7 or 8 inches but in reality they were just skimming the ground. On dry years some of those old plows wouldn't go that deep anyway. I used to occasionally see a plow with a big rock perched on top of it to help it go down. My son bought this plow about five years ago and it wouldn't go in the ground or plow straight for anything. I finally looked at a twin to this plow that I know plowed right to see how it was adjusted. I changed this one to those adjustments and now it does what it is supposed to do.

Sure would like to hook my 80 to your plow, my 23.1x30 tires would be a problem though. Looks like fun.