A few posts back I featured a relative who had emigrated to Canada ploughing with horser.  Here is an interesting one of anothe relative who developed a horse drawn potato planter.  Looks like a wodden wheel??

One of my sadder tractor p[hotos is this one of my Dad and |Uncle's retirement sale.  Massey Fergusons and David Browns under the hammer.  I drove them all at one time or another and they all had their individual characteristics

John

This is my father's MF 165 hitched up to a mounted crop sprayer filling with water in the farm yard about 1972.  Note that the tractor is fitted with rowcrop rear wheels for spraying in rowcrops - in this case cabbages and potatoes.

John

I bought this MH 55K in about 1966 when I was still a student.  It was a one owner from new by a very careful farmer in Shropshire, England.  He said it was the only tractor of its day that could master a 4 furrow plough on his steep fields.  It was in excellent condition.  The 6V battery it came with was too weak to start the tractor but it was very easy to crank by hand and fired up every time on the 2nd or 3rd pull.  I kept it my Dad and uncle's farm where they soon decided that it would be ideal for powering the fan on the grain dryer.  It did 5 or so years on this running 24 hrs a day for about 6 weeks over harvest for about 5 years before I bought an MH 744D which promptly replaced it being a more economical diesel (see earlier post).  It then went into storage for many years unused and unstarted  and regularly sprayed with old sump oil to protect it from rusting.  Here it is pulled out of storage after I had sold it on to a collector in Scotland.  I asked him to give me first chance to buy it back if ever he was to sell it because I was only selling it off because I had nowhere to store it with Dad imminently to retire.  In the event he didn't and sold it to someone in Ireland and I have sadly lost all track of it.
John

Here is my uncle's MF 178 multi power tractor coupled to his Welger pick up baler ready for baling barley straw in about 1973.  The tractor was regularly used for baling and ploughing duties for which the multi power was very convenient for when the straw swath or ploughing got heavy - easy to slightly reduce forward speed when the occasion demanded.

John

This rather poor photo was taken in about 1965 just as I was graduating.  Dad and my unlce had recently taken a new farm on Barton Moss - deep peat moss.  Very fertile as long as kept in well drained condition.  This farm had been badly neglected and the tile and ditch drainage system was in poor order.  The first job was to get the open ditch system freely flowing again to shift the water from the tile drains. For this they bought this Ferguson TEF tractor - the British diesel engine version of the grey Ferguson.  A lovely smooth and responsive runner.  It had hiched to it  an extremely  heavy Dinkum Digger.  In actual fact it was far too heavy for the tractor but salvation lay in hanging about 12 short lengths of railway line from the front end of the tractor to balance it.  This was very effective.  To stop the tractor sinking on the soft, often saturated peat land we fitted cage wheels on the rear to aid flotation - these are not shown here.  The digger is shown with a digging bucket but we replaced this with a wide ditching bocket and set about cleaning and bottoming out maybe 3 miles of ditches.   Subsequently we went on to re-lay or replace many of the tile drains which were spaced about 8-10 yards apart and 4-6 ft deep.  Rewarding days!!
John

This was my great uncle Peter's David Brown 25D diesel tractor - the first diesel that he ever owned.  He was a vegetable grower specialisung in celery, lettuce and cabbage..My Dad and uncle took over this farm and the tractor came to my son.

John

Not quite a "family" tractor but almost good enough.  This photo is of our neighbours tractor - a standard Fordson on the next field to us.  It is being driven by a Mr Eccleston  whose son came to work for my Dad as soon as he left school.
John

Two "on the move photos" tonight.  Both with me driving.  On the left on my uncle's farm which ran along the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal - visible on the far right - and on towards the motorway high level Barton Bridge which crossed his land.  We went under this to one field on the other side.  I'm driving one of his two MF 35 Perkins 3 cylinder diesel engine tractors.  One of the finest tractors ever built by MF??
John

I did not finish my last post! 

I did not include a description of the tractor on the right.  This was a David Brown Cropmaster petrol/TVO tractor which I borrowed from my father, as it was by then redundant, for 3 years to undertake upland pasture research.  I had a Ferguson transport box on the rear to carry equipment and my technical assistant.  It is shown here at 1000 ft above sea level where I had my experimental plots.  Base camp was down at sea level and we went up and down a hair raising very steep rock, stone and dirt track in all weathers to access the plot site.  The Irish Sea which links to the Atlantic and across to N America can be seen in the background.  I only ever ran it on petrol as going down the steep hill the engine did not run hot enough to fully vaporise the TVO.  It was fitted with a self starter but I never fitted a battery as it was such a reliable starter on its magneto with hand cranking.  It served me well for 3 years after which I sold it and have now lost track of it.  Happy days!
John