Tractor acreage ratings

Rick Kr

Well-known Member
The post below about the good old days got me thinking. Does anyone have any info or details from the advertisements or literature on tractors and what size farm they were "rated" for.

Seems I recall a few old videos on youtube where a "Ford 8N is perfect for the 120 acre farm" and a smaller Farmall was good for an 80 acre farm.

Rick
 
Might have some Oliver ones, can't imagine farming 120 acres with a 8n, now days I can do that in a few hours on field cultivator, I can average around 64 acres an hour, I'll check my oliver brochures.
 
But Daddy pays the bills. He wants real numbers. You would be best served keeping quiet in this thread.
 
The old JD literature compared the tractors to horses, also specified how many acres an hour each tractor could do using different equipment.
 
Who made you a part of this conversation, if you don't have
something to say on this post, why reply.
 
I think it was advertised that the farmall C I had could plow 2 acres per hour. There is an old advertisement for the Farmall M that says it can plow "20 tough acres in an 8 hour day." The same ad says the farmall super C in tough plowing can go 5 hours on a full tank of fuel.


I have to laugh when I read that! I go about 20 hours on a tank of fuel with the New Holland 8670. Of course, it also takes me 8 hours to plow 20 acres with that big tractor, because I have to plow one way, throwing up hill, and my fields are scattered everywhere and some are very short. I spend more time turning around than I do with the plow in the ground, guaranteed!



Just to see if we could do it, a buddy of my with a Massey Harris 101 Jr. twin power, and I with a Farmall C decided we were going to put in 7 acres of soybeans. It took us just as long to get the ground worked with those two tractors as it did for me to work 45 acres of corn ground with a ford 7000 and matching implements. Although, we do have hard pulling limestone clay ground. If you've never plowed limestone clay... well, I don't think I could describe it.
 
Only found one, it was out of a dealer brochure not a factory oliver brochure, 88 Oliver says 160 acres, most my Oliver and mm brochures are late models and don't compare to that, thought I had brochures on r,z,u and g Minneapolis Moline's can't find them, I'll let u know if I find them and mention how much there rated for
 
I farmed 120 with old AC gas, WD's, D's, the fuel and time didn't kill me. The people I bought the place from.... had 3 or 4 little Fords- 8n, 641 and such.... those replaced the horses they used into the 60's. If this is so odd, people got to ask how the Amish farm 200 or more with a couple teams... and a bunch of kids of course...
 
Years ago a neighbor who had 70 acres tillable out of 80 sold the horses and bought a Farmall B. Next year he traded the B for an SC Case. He had farmed that land with the SC for thirty years when he retired. Jim
 
200 to 300 hundred acres for a F30, 125 for a F12
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Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. You just get it out... No need to take it to your grave.

Yee yee YIKES
 
Dad did well then, 200 tillable with his 88 gas back in the day.

Got a few more bu to handle these days tho, more trash to deal with, etc.

Paul
 
That was quiet good, an extra 40 acres would take quiet a bit more time, the 88 was a good plow tractor, why grandpa bought 3 new, one still in the family.
 
Now wait a minute MM man-The way I got it figured for you to do your 64 A/hr---If you had a 50 ft. FC. you would have to average 10.56 mph-How big is your Field cult? Just wondering!
 
When I was running a custom sprayer, I could get the monitor up to over 200 acres per hour, but by the time I reloaded, it was down to about 100. And yes I have sprayed over 1300 acres in a day!
 
The thing you have to consider though is that that 120 acres back then wouldn't have been all in a corn/soybean rotation. The place probably would have been split up and fenced in to a lot of 5 acre fields,a good bit of pasture for cattle,a large variety of crops. Hay,corn,potatoes,wheat,oats etc. That would have split up the workload over time.
 
A 30' field Cultivator being pulled at 6mph will cover 22 A/hr. when field efficiency is included in the formula. See chart, 30'width---speed 6mph. You Read the Acers per hour on the chart.
Loren, the Acg.
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In the 50's, before I was born, I think my dad farmed 300+ acres with a dc case and a ford jubilee. Worked with my uncle a bit I think and he had an allis wd or wd45. That was a mix of crops tho.
 
on my dads 122 acre spread , half was tillable ,he farmed with a vai,and a sc ,when i was born , he traded the sc on a 35 ferguson deluxe ,he loved that deluxe! my 430 case is my main tractor to farm all i do,, i have 10 more tractors ,that are dedicated to eqipment thru the summer to save hookup time ,, i suppose if 60 yrs ago pop would had been able to pik up decent 40 yr old proven equipmentin decent working condition for slightly above scrap price like i can today ,,, he certainly would had bought alot ,,but it just was not there ,,,
 
I put this question out there to see how much things have changed in the last 50 or so years.

My great grandpa farmed 80 acres (65 tillable) with a 1946 WC AC, 2 bottom IH, 8ft disc, 9ft cultivator. 1920-46 with horses, 46-60 with the WC.

I still have all of his equipment. What I find interesting, tractors that 50 - 70 years ago were enough to support entire families now are collector pieces to a lot of people. Think how happy the farmer was to get his first tractor and the cost he had to pay.

I do like all the pictures on here of everyone still using their "old" tractors.

Rick
 

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