Farmall M's Gas Hog's

With my old Vermeer 605C round baler, I can bale 7 or eight hours on 15 gal of fuel.

But the rumors persist. I was in a starter shop with my hay hand when an old man asked him what the starter was off. He said an M Farmall, and the guy laughed "takes 55 gal a day". We"ve laughed about that, because haying we use between 10 and 20 gallons depending on the hours worked and load pulled.

My hay hand grew up on new JD, he"s only 20, and he was used to using almost the same in diesel because they had tractors way oversized for the job. They were mowing with an old 4020.

When somebody tells me to get a newer tractor to save fuel, I tell them what I paid for fuel last year, $1200. How much of that can I save with a newer tractor? Lucky to save $300 per year. Another M is about all I can manage on $300/year payments. And I"ve never lost a $1200 injector pump or $1500 hydraulic pump on an M. Maintenance costs on the old M"s are about zero. An occasional $300 radiator, $20 carduretor kit, $150 transmission gear plus tires and batteries is all I have had so pay out in twenty plus years of working the same four M"s year after year.

If the implements would last like the M"s farming would be really cheap for me.

Just to give you an example, we had a gas Farmall 300 when the first NH 9' haybines hit the market. That 300 would eat up 3 Can. gallons of gas per hour on haybine. With the new Farmall 560 diesel that dropped to 1 Can. gallon per hour. Back in those days we were using the imperial gallon, 20% larger than US gallon. The other factor the 300 was loaded, 560 was playing.