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Farming With Crawler Tractors

3

37chief

Well-known Member
Location
California
Out here on the west coast of California, up until the 60's, most all the ground preparation, was done with crawlers. Beans Oats, and barley were always planted with crawler tractors. Cultivating, cutting, and racking was done with rubber tire tractors. I don't know how far east a lot of the farming was done with crawlers. Any of you back east, have used crawlers for farming operation' or still do? Stan
 
Crawlers were not unheard of with IH and Oliver units doing tillage, logging, and blade work. When PTO driven forage blowers became common the farms that had PTO equipped crawlers often hooked up the crawler to the blower.
 
A friend of mine said he got a crawler from a WWII veterans program. He pulled a 4bottom plow with it. The next year he finally got the Farmall M that he wanted it the first place. The M pulled a two bottom twice as fast as the crawler, and the third year he got another M and sold the crawler. All in west central IL,Quincy IL. I do not remember the model of the crawler, but it was an IH.
 
When I was a kid a farmer by the town I went to school in used a crawler for farm work. That was the only steel tracked farm crawler I know of back then. We don’t have a need for the sidehill stability of a crawler though sometimes the flotation of a crawler comes in handy.
 
I know of only one crawler in the area where I grew up in north central ND. It was a big IH (TD-18?) and pulled big cultivators and chisel plows. This was in the 1950s before any big 4 wheel drive rubber tired tractors were available.
 
In the 50s, my uncle used a D2 or D4 for tillage work, along with his red tractors. Only one I ever knew about. BTW, his SIL just sold the cherry IH 91 combine that the uncle bought new when they came out, when, early 60s? Used it only a few years. Two lever planetary steering.
 
I remember my dad using the JD MC crawler to pull the grain drill once, it was kind of wet and he wanted to avoid ground compaction. My uncle in Western ND farmed with crawlers, it was too hilly for a wheel tractor! You see a few of the big new tracked machines in N MN now.
 
Where I grew up in Northern Maine, Cletrac and Oliver row crop crawlers were quite popular. They worked the potato fields in the summer, and would hire out to the logging camps in the winter.
 
I used a 420c growing up pulled a 14 foot ih 620 press drill or a 4 section spike tooth harrow I always wanted to find a disk and a plow for it but I never did
 
Ag crawlers were the norm in the Palouse region of eastern WA for years....about the only thing back then that would climb the hills. Now you see a lot of rubber tracks and quads. Google 'palouse' for a feel for how these guys grew wheat!
 
I grew up in Northeastern Ohio in the 1950s. I started driving tractors when I was about 7 or 8 years old. One of them was a MM Model Z with a hand clutch and the other was a crawler. I was too young to care about the brand of the crawler, but I really enjoyed the two sticks. That farmer is the only guy I knew of with a crawler.

Tom in TN
 
Here in SE Illinois just two neighbors farmed with tracks. One had a D4 Cat, the other was a little Oliver. It was wide enough to cultivate corn or beans. In 1964 I went to walla walla Washington to cut wheat. Was hired to drive a truck, but when the owners found out we (3 of us) could drive combines, and tractors. We were soon doing everything. Rod-weeding was a hoot we had never pulled anything that wide. I think at least 40 ft. The tractors were D6 Cats ag models. Had turbos. 6 ft exhaust pipes and 5 ft. Air intakes. These tractors really clicked along.
 
In Montana lots of farmers used crawlers because no else made rubber tire tractors big enough until the Wagners, JD 5010/20s, Versatile and Steiger came along. Grandpa started out with a D4 then went to an IH TD 14 then TD 14A which we still have.
 
A fellow near Great Falls Mt had a collection of steamers and crawlers. His Dad started with steamers, went to IH crawlers. When son took over he used crawlers until he went to big 4 x 4's. They used the big crawlers because they were the biggest tractors then. They usually pulled 36 or more feet of cultivators.
After he passed away, his girls leased out the farm, kept some of his antique machinery. They try to have a show in September. I went 2 years ago, and they had a military TD-18 restored to operating condition. There was an older (well, older than me, I'm 70) taking care of it, running it, showing it off.
Just a scrawny 'lil guy. Could hardly steer it anymore. I asked him what attracted him to that particular tractor. His answer ran chills down my spine. He said he ran one just like it during WWII in the Philipean (sp) Islands. Still gives me a thrill to think about him dragging howitzers through the mud there!
 
Stan - Here in Nevada crawlers were used in lots of areas throughout the State, as we have a lot of hard-pan Caliche and a crawler is the only thing that has enough "bite" to pull a plow or sub-soiler through it. I currently have a 1937 Allis Chalmers "M" farm crawler sitting in my yard (future restoration project) .

Doc
 
In the 50's a farmer uses a crawler in NW Indiana. The ground was muck. A ditch was dug around farm and pumps drained water so it could be farmed. It was adjacent to Kankakee(not sure of spelling) game preserve. Next door, my dad used JD A's.
 
My uncle and his dad farmed with 2 D4 cats, They did all the plowing and disking with them. Pulled 5-14s case plows.
My dad had them plow all his alphalfa ground.
Brian
 
Back in the early 60's we used a John Deere 420 crawler some on the farm as well as some light logging, we puled a Model 25 combine and a plow with it somes, that is where I got the wild idea to build a 60 crawler.
cvphoto3088.jpg
 
Here in Ohio there was a potato farm that used crawlers. I don't think they do potatoes any more though.
 
Every one in my area of California farmed with crawlers because the hills are too steep for wheel tractors. I farmed with a D2 for years until I got a D4. Most used IH because there was a dealer. The A.C. model M replaced the horse.
 
Back in about 1957 or so, our family went on a summer holiday trip and got as far south as some places in northern Oregon. I remember hilly farm country and you could see the track treads on the hills but we never saw any crawlers actually doing any farming. I remember my dad commenting on it, whether he ever figured out the reason(s) for what he saw I don't know.
 
Like you said before 1960 , same at my uncles farm here in N/E Ohio . Since it was taters and wheat the pony power was provided by and Oliver O C 6 and a Oliver O C 3 for many years somewhere around 57 and old M showed up for a vary short stay due to the narrow ft. and was replaced with and Oliver 88 that seamed to spend a lot of time being worked on . Neighbor has a D 4 Cat a Freggy 30 and a W D 45 . All tillage was done with the crawlers the planting was done with the O C 6 and all cultivating and hilling on both farms was done with the O C 3 with help from the Freggy 30 twp rows at a time , Wd 45 was used a l;ot for pulling the pipe wagon moving the irrigation pipe from field to field . in 58 a brand new Fordson super major diesel showed up and it had Powerful steering and must have come standard with built in lest break down often as like the 88 something was always wrong with it . That gave way to the 560 diesel Farmall with the onset of going from the two two row diggers and the hoard of people putting the taters in the bushel baskets and the team of men dumping those baskets on to the elevator at the storage barns to the new John Beam two row harvester. But even with the NEW 560 it was not enough to pull the harvester in the fields by it's self so the O C 6 had to help , Trucks and wagons replaced the bushel baskets and the D 4 was used as and aid to help the trucks . Even the new 4010 deere in 61 could not handle the harvester in the hills and had to be helped . Not till Sept of 63 when the new 806 arrived could just one tractor do that job .
 
Nope I believe Thompson was the last to go out . Taters were growen up into southern Mahoning from U S 62 east and just a little way north of Ohio 165 and down into Columbina County east of Depot Rd and on down south to 528 , ya had some out n/e of wooster also . My uncle and his neighbor and friend worked together and were one of the larger operations and at one time they were covering lots of acres . Around here ya either were milking cows or ya were into taters.
 
Just north of me here in Missouri the Mennonites commonly use them and or tractors but with steel wheels instead of rubber tires. Sort of odd to see a brand new tractor with steel wheels on them
 
Here in SE PA, Grandfather's first tractor was a 1936 Cletrac. Used it here until about 1960. Not hilly here, so not sure why he went with tracks. About 30 miles away some large scale potato farming on hilly ground farmed exclusively with Cletracs (said that ground was too steep for wheel tractors).
 
My dad ran my grandpa's TD 18 in the winter time plowing snow for a seismograph crew. There were many nights when that crawler ran all night long for fear that they could not get it started in the morning. I remember every so often dad would plow a wide spot so that 2 vehicles meet. At the time dad had a willy's jeep pickup and the snow on the sides where he plowed was taller than the pickup cab. Its what I would call tunnel driving. He worked most of that winter for them. That was also the year the snow was so deep we could walk up on the roof of the house and then sled down the other side. I don't know if grandpa ever farmed with it or not. Bud
 
A pea farmer friend of mine in the Palouse country uses only tracked tractors. He said the peas did better because there was less compaction.
 
Visited Harrisburg Pa just before Halloween. Did a Amish area tour. Saw what looked like a IH 706 near a barn with steel wheels, but wrapped with rubber so they could go on the pavement. I was unable to fine anyone to get permission to get a close-up pic.
 
Grandpa had a cat sixty for farming then got a D-4 he plowed and wrked ground with it then planted with the H. Pulled 4-16's with the cat 12 foot disk and 24 foot of drag. I have seen him and I have planted a wet spot with the drill for oats then switch back to the H for the rest of the field.
I plowed with the D-4 till about the mid 1980's also used a No.6 traxcavator or a D-6 with a loader on it with 6-16's. Plowed with them if it was a bit wet or was not drying out good. When we went to working ground away from the home place had to go to rubber tires for the travel on county roads.
This all goes back to the 20's for farming. Before that was horses.
 
When we moved back on the family farm, south of Boone, Co., we had 4 wheeled tractors and one TD-6. The crawler was relegated to dirt work and pulling the ditcher, cleaning ditches. Dad then traded it for a D-4 and a scraper to do a leveling job to add to the irrigated acreage. It also got used in the field, pulling an Eversman land leveler. When we left the farm, the D-4 was sold to a cattle yard, cleaning pens. But we ended up with two TD-18s. The 18's never made it to the field, while we owned them, but they were suppose to be used rebuilding terraces for a guy we worked for in Western Kansas. At a young age, I got to drive all of them! Sadly I only got to "yard" move the 18's!!
 
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