Put that tractor to work!

I went back to Larry@Stinescorners thread but had forgotten about a story a friend told me years ago till tonight. My friend had gone off to college and while he was not a part of his father's farm business once the friend graduated (engineer) he did live near by. Not too long after the friend picked up an 8N and a Farmall H just to play with. One day he stopped by the dad's place and lamented he did not have any heavy chores to really work those tractors. The dad said he had what he needed for tools in terms of mowers, rakes, and so-forth (for the other tractors) but by golly would find a way to put the 8N and the H to work and work HARD. The dad was at an auction and had a friend who he could trust with an opinion when a small silo blower (NH 25) came up for bid. The friend told the father while he was not going to set the world on fire with the 25 he could make it work with the old tractors using common sense. Surprised my friend as he thought the old man would buy a mower the father did not really want to help the son out. Each tractor had its turn blowing a few dozen loads up the pipe. If weather got to be an issue then the bigger blower and tractor came out. Probably a better story to me knowing the people involved and the initial unpredictability of the situation. Also, I love nothing more than an old style silo-filling story.

I can remember my friend's dad filling a 60 foot tall Harvestore with a Farmall H. He had a 656 and a 460, don't know why neither of them were used. We almost always used an Allis D17 back home. One day my brothers and I snuck the 4020 on the blower. It was great, we could unload the wagons on cleanout position, but we bent the heck out of the silage distributor. Dad was NOT happy with us. On my farm I usually used a JD 620, but sometimes the use the Ferguson TO30 just for laughs.

I do not remember much but I do remember the friend's dad who was around 51 considered himself retired from running open station tractors in the field. No way he was going to spend an afternoon raking hay with those old tractors. Also, I believe the forage wagons were maybe mid-sized to start with so it was possible to spoon feed the blower. Small farm with maybe 70 milkers but a good land base.

I liked the new style silo filling when our neighbor bought a chopper and did custom work. He filled both big silos in about 3 days. We had 2 men tramping in the silo and one keeping the 10-20 on the belt fueled and oil level checked. This was about 1949. The old way of using the silage cutter took about several weeks. Had to hire extra help as my brother and I were still in school. Then the Korean War started and we were in the military. Hal

I recall the family I mentioned had two medium silos to fill so using the small set up was not out of the question. Had they needed to cover a hundred acres or so then they did not have the luxury. A majority of the ground was high quality so they could do vegetables and diversify the operation. Allowed for smaller tractors but each had more features such as a cab. I think they had an IH 886, Ford 6610, Ford 5610, another smaller diesel Ford, NAA, and late 8N (the father's). I always wished we had more cropping options but our ground is not good enough for the current standards for vegetables. We do a lot of soybeans here.