Can a Farmall H handle a 3 bottom plow?

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Not really. In very sandy soil it will work but barely. 2 14 yes 2 16 SH 3 plows M. JimN

H is a bit weak for 3 bottoms.

Thanks. Do you know how many row cultivator? I've heard anywhere from 2 to 6.

NO

4 row is operational six will not be rapid enough to get things done. 2 is very slow even in fourth gear. I used a 2 row on 100 acres three passes a season for 8+ years going in low for emergent crops, to 4th at foot tall corn. Not very much better than paint drying. Looking down at slow moving rows of beans until when you stop, the world looks like it is backing up!! JimN

I've pulled a 3 bottom with a Super H, and it handled it nicely. BUT, it was good soil and the Super H had been warmed up a little.

For a stock H, 2 bottoms is about it in most soil, three is too much.

And when you close your eyes at nite all you see is those confounded rows.

Jim,
I share your feelings about a 2 row cult. First time across in low gear made me very sleepy.

However, as a young kid in the late "40s and early "50s no one owned a 4-row cultivator in EC Iowa, at least we never saw one (Grundy Co.). Cultivated 2 rows with F20, H and M, JD B and A, Case SC and thought that was normal. At the ends we turned and skipped 2 rows, then dropped cult. and went down those rows. When we got across to the fenceline, we worked our way back on those skipped rows. That method saved wear and tear on the brakes making too tight of a turn, and was easier for a kid with no power steering on a tractor with a heavy front end.
But I thought an H in 4th was flying when doing the 3rd cultivating ("Laying it by").

From a road, it was kind of neat to see a field half cultivated...like a striped field.

The biggest (and most impressionable) new inventions I saw back then were the 4 row cult, a 4 bottom trailer plow behind a JD R and an open seat self-propelled Case combine. Open seat on a combine, November, and Iowa = whooey!
Same as a mounted picker!
LA in WI

Antgre,
In the era when the H was built, horsepower in advertising was rarely mentioned for any tractor; tractors were mostly gas and most farmers did not "monkey "mit da engines". Tractors were rated and sold by the terms "2 plow", "3 plow", etc. An H is a "2 plow" and an M is "3 plow". JD B was 2 plow, A was 3 plow, G actually a "3.3" plow.

As kids we would argue with the neighbor kid about how much more powerful our Farmall H was than his dad"s JD B...and it really was like splitting hairs.
LA in WI

Hello LA in MI
You forgot to mention cultivating "cross check" corn. To the younger, that's 90 degrees to the direction it was planted. A knoted wire was used to trip the planter at the right time. Extra nice to see the 45 degree view too if planted with care. My father was a real stickler to being military straight. Out neighbor drank Blackberry Brandy most of time he planted. Big contrast. Both fields were fun to compare. ag

Agpilot,

Be real careful...you called me LA in MI. I don"t think those MI folks would like me being associated with that fine state. They barely tolerate me in Wi (native Iowan) because most of the years U.of Iowa has beat Wi in bucketball and football like a drum. I wear an Iowa cap in a cafe and the natives get very restless! (But sure is fun.)

Yeah, cross check corn. Cultivating (for the "2nd time") crossways for a farmer who was poor with the stakes at each end of the field when using check wire made for a hard day of turning left and right quickly, especially when he used a 2 row planter.

Then, on the 3rd pass (lay by time) the corn was as tall, or taller, than the clearance under the rear axle so we would take off the cultivator shields, set the shovels and sweeps a little farther away from the row so we didn"t cut off corn roots, put that H in 3rd and take off! Cultivating wide open in a field that had last been cross-cultivated was hard on the tractor front end and my back end. I still remember the sound a tractor front end makes when the tractor is momentarily weightless and hits back down. In 4th the ride could be like hanging onto a rodeo bronk in a bad mood, but you did not get sleepy! Our neighbors F20 would spill water out the radiator like crazy when doing that.

And you are right, my dad had to see rows as straight as an arrow both lengthwise and crosswise. With corn at 6-8" high, it was a series of geometric patterns...very pretty sight.

As you drove around the neighborhood and saw a field that "was not right" the automatic assumption was that that farmer was indeed a poor farmer.

I knew one that liked Blackberry Brandy and his fields showed it, also. But he was a nice guy and was fun to listen to at the grain elevator.

If a farmer wanted to increase his yield, they would sometimes plant "two to a hill" or even "3 to a hill". When I first suggested to dad that we ought to throw away the check wire and "drill" our corn (same thing as today) like some bigger farmers were doing, he looked at me like I had come from the moon. He didn"t say a word....but I"ll never forget that look.

Some WI guys are going to have to say whether they used wire check here, but how would you do that on all the hills and curves?

Sorry for the long post...you get me going with those old days. I still can"t get over power steering, hydraulics and cabs...what will they think of next?

LA in WI

We never went over the corn but twice. When I took over the corn plowing we did it only once. By the time I came along we had flat (peanut) sweeps that did not throw much dirt. I waited for the corn to get about 4 to 6 inches tall and cultivated at about 4 mph behind the anhidrous. My uncle taught me to do the skip row cultivating and I would never touch the clutch on the ends but would throtle down. I am glad I never had to do check row!!!

Hello "LA in WI".. That MI was upside down (Grin)
Most of the cultivating cross check I did was with a smaller tractor and 2 rows so it could zig zag quicker. We stopped checking when we traded the MD for a new Super MD with wide front. Then he bought a 4 row cultivator for that which I did all cultivating for next 7 years. All "ArmStrong" powered steering. Loader work was also no power steering.. but hey it lots better tractor then many had at that time. and lots better then by hand which it what most farming was since the stone age. 1900 to 1950 were really big changes.
Anyway... good old days? ag

That H should pull 2 - 14" plows in hard ground without trouble and should be able to pull 2 - 16" in 2nd gear in most soils, provided that you have enough weight and traction. I have pulled 3 - 12" plows with my H in stubble ground and even tried a 3 - 14" and did it. The 3 - 12" wasn't bad, (about 2/3 throttle, 2nd gear) but the 3 - 14" worked the old girl pretty dang hard, even in stubble ground. Had the fire comin out the stack and the manifold glowing. 2nd gear, wide open throttle and she had all she wanted.

My father had 2 Hs, one K-D engine (we used gas), one gas. In our medium-heavy, somewhat clayey soil in central NJ, both tractors had plenty to do with a 2-12" Little Genius. I never tried the double 14" plow that had come with my father's 10-20, because the Hs seemed to be working at capacity. The H has enough horsepower, theoretically, but it has a very small engine compared to the F-20 or 10-20 it was supposed to replace (about 152 cubic inches, versus 221 and 284 inches for the other tractors). The horsepower comes from speed: the little engine is a bit like a small man on a bicycle going up hill--you put the bike in low and pedal fast. A cyclist with muscle could go up the same hill in a higher gear and pedalling more slowly. The older tractors didn't run very fast, but they had the muscle that came from the cubes. There are probably engineering explanations for the original designs, but I'd guess that the early engineers didn't trust the primitive splash lube systems and so didn't dare run the engines fast. Anyway, the end result of the H being a "2-plow tractor" with an engine that was not too much bigger than that of an F-14 was that it pulled just fine as long as the engine speed could be kept up, but it was easy to pull down with an overload. A side remark: Early brochures for tractors often talked of "plowing speed," which was usually second in a three-speed tractor, and second was usually around 3 or 3.25 mph, which is just about the speed where a "2-plow tractor" with around 15 or so max h.p. at the drawbar can pull 2-14s. The H was certainly designed with second gear as the "plowing speed," since it was a design of the late 30s AND was available on steel wheels right from the factory.
Incidentally, the F-20 and 10-20 ON STEEL would not pull two plows faster than about 3 mph, either. I remember vividly trying to plow in third with our steel-wheeled 10-20. So much power was wasted through those lugs that no heavy work could be done in third. I also remember an F-20 and a "Regular" that I often used, both on rubber, and they would plow at 4 mph. The rubber wasted so much less power that you were getting about 30% more ground speed. Hard as H...on your backside, but man! could those things work when converted.
I enjoyed the remarks about check-rowed corn. I used to cross-cultivate with an F-12, until my father decided in the early 40s that check-row just took too much time and he began to "sow" the corn, which meant no more cross-cultivating, but there were probably a few more weeds in between the stalks. In a very old brochure I have for the original Farmall, there is a whole page devoted to the "square turn" that the Farmall was designed for--that's why it has those powerful automatic turning brakes. I studied the brochure and pictures and somehow learned to make the square turn through the corn. Soon the neighbors were noticing that the little squirt next door wasn't knocking any corn down. I didn't learn this until I had grown up and left the farm. Good thing, I guess, to keep my head from swelling up too early (I've been called a "fat head" more recently, but I don't know where that swelled-up ego came from).

Wow. Thanks for the replies. My first job was working on a farm from about 13 to 16 years old. I did all kinds of odd jobs you would expect a teenager to do. Stacking hay, feeding cows/pigs/chickens, milking, shoveling silage, helped deliver a calf once. I also shuttled hay wagons with a JD 70. I got to drive the JD diesel once (think it was a 4020). That was great. I never did get to plow, cultivate, plant. Looking back I think that was the funnest job I ever had.

Anyway recently I bought a Farmall H just to clear snow from the driveway. Now I'm trying to figure out how else I can use my H on our 19 acres.

I really appreciate all the stories and advice and they make me realize how much I really don't know and want to learn about farming my small acreage.

I expect I'll be on this forum from time to time asking stupid questions.

Thank you all.

Len, I think the H was a replacement for the F12/F14. The M replaced the F20...and maybe even the F30. I think.
LA in WI

As to the H replacing the F-14, I have heard that dealers were told to sell them that way, but you don't see that in the IHC sales brochures. I'm looking right now at an original sales brochure (probably about 1941) that says the H "will pull two 14-inch bottoms in normal fields under any plowing conditions." It was understood back then that "two-plow tractor" meant that it could pull 2-14s. As I mentioned in my earlier blurb here, the Farmall and F-20 on steel would pull only 2-14s at around 3 mph, but on rubber, their horsepower-to-the-ground increased and they were able to work harder. On 36" rubber, the Farmall and F-20 were considerably faster than they were on steel. The original steel wheels were 40" in diameter, but the 36" rims must have given a diameter close to 50" (I'm estimating 5-6" top and bottom for the tire-don't have any way now to measure this). The result of the rubber and the bigger wheels was a faster ground speed in each gear. I once "raced" an F-20 next to an F-12, and the -12 in third (supposed to be about 4 mph) was about as fast as the F-20 in second. We used to pull a PTO combine with an F-20, and even in low gear, it was sometimes too fast for conditions. I'd guess that low was about as fast as the original second gear. The end result of all this was that the F-20 would pull 2-14s at about 4 mph instead of 3, as on steel. Too long story short: The H would replace a steel-wheeled F-20, but it was no match for a '20 converted to rubber. This may have been why dealers were quietly told not to push the H too hard as a 2-plow tractor. There is no doubt that the H acts more like an F-14--small engine, running fast, good horsepower, not much torque. It is, in fact, a lovely tractor for all kinds of light chores--raking, mowing, hauling. It is fairly agile for a tractor of its day, not nearly as clumsy as an F-20. Quite comfortable, easy to steer, nice and quiet with a muffler. I used to get frustrated when plowing because I couldn't rip up ground like I did with the F-20, but I loved driving the beautiful H. Looking down the hood of an H or M is just wonderful. Never thought I'd sound so sentimental about a bunch of iron and steel.
I had an uncle whose ground was full of clay, and he bought an M to replace his 10-20. He never pulled more than 2-14s. I never had
the good fortune to plow with this tractor, but I imagine that the M compared to the F-30 was a little like the H and the F-20--horsepower up there, but less torque. The Super M raised the ante. I had a chance to do some heavy work with one of these a while back, and I was impressed with its torque.

When my father "retired" and rented his farm to neighbors, he kept his H to keep the meadows clean. He had a 5 or 6 foot Bush Hog, and in some conditions, this was just too big for the H. If you decide to use it for heavy trimming, get some advice on the right size Hog.