Homemade Fertilzer Spreader

Richard G.

Well-known Member
Found this on the old farm the state ag museum is getting some things from. The axle is a Model A Ford rear axle with the drive shaft connection turned up. It has a heavy steel plate with paddles welded on it for the slinger. an agitator and a slide door on the bottom, very heavy steel barrel and a tongue under the junk you can't see in the photo. These folks were very self sufficient.
Richard in NW SC
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I borrowed one almost exactly like that from an Amish neighbor, last year. The barrel rusted out, so it was replaced with a plastic one.
 
Way back when!! The town hwy. dept. built spreaders like that, for sanding the roads. They suspended them off the back of their plow trucks, and a guy shoveled the sand over the tailgate and onto the spinner plate. There wasn't any hopper.
Loren, the Acg.
 
when I was a boy , saw one sell at auction , must abeen common around here , there were a few folx there that said they made one like that and auctioneer done a little expo on how it was built ,,brought gooood money,, remember fellas talking about that ,,, but that was in the late 60s
 
I know a guy who has a modern hopper type seeder, and the little gearbox failed, so he adapted it to an old car rear axle. It works pretty slick.
 
Richard,

There was a local guy who use to build those, my gramps had one, and now my uncle has it and still uses it. IIRC, he built them in his junkyard, and sold them to dealers around the area. I know Old Stone sold them at one time, of course this was years ago now, but it could be one of this guys spreaders. Ill look and see if I can find ay pics of my gramps, and try to reach my uncle to see what he remembers about the one he has. Im wanting to say the guy who owned the junkyard was in Liberty, or maybe Anderson, I don't remember now.
 
In these parts, extension (I think) had plans for those during the depression. They used the spreaders for grasshopper bait.
 
My Dad made one to spread grasshopper poison. There were large infestations of grasshoppers during the dry years of the 1930's.

Clouds of grasshoppers would fly in, land and eat anything green. After the finished eating anything green, the ate cedar fenceposts and the cedar siding on the house.

The counties had their own spreaders. When the county crew got tired of spreading, they just dug a hole and buried the arsenic. Every once in awhile they find one of those cached and dig them up. That may be the source of arsenic that showes up in someone's well unexpectedly.
 

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