Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2022 i Farm Collector

Years ago, I happened onto a cache of black-and-white 8x10 photographs capturing the business district in the small town where I once lived. The photos, taken perhaps 40 years earlier, were fascinating. They showed businesses long since gone, deep awnings blocking morning sun, vintage cars, and placards announcing brand names and prices. Using a magnifying glass, I pored over details in every photo. I saw intact buildings that had not yet been subdivided. I saw architectural details since removed in an effort to modernize. I saw a rather bare courtyard compared to the shaded one I knew. It dawned on me that I’d never seen similar photos from subsequent eras. At that moment, I began to sense what had quietly disappeared. In the future, who would know or remember what…

Most fans of International Harvester Co. have heard of Alexander Legge. If they haven’t, they should have. Legge (pronounced leg) was one of the giants of the farm implement business, serving as president of International Harvester during the tumultuous years (1922-’29) of the “tractor wars” with Henry Ford. Legge performed outstanding service to his country as well, initially during World War I, as vice chairman of the War Industries Board, and later as chairman of the ill-fated Federal Farm Board during Herbert Hoover’s administration. Alexander Legge was born on a farm south of Madison, Wisconsin, on January 13, 1866. His parents, Christina and Alexander, married in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1857, moving to Wisconsin to be near one of Mrs. Legge’s sisters. The elder Legge was…

When Albert Einstein famously concluded that “imagination is more important than knowledge,” he probably didn’t have Henry Ford in mind. But he could have. Ford achieved great success by manufacturing an affordable automobile. As a farmer’s son, Ford was no stranger to hard physical labor – and that was the motivation for his efforts to mechanize agriculture. Ford began developing an experimental tractor in 1907, although the word “tractor” was never applied to his contraption, which was instead called an “automobile plow.” To save on development and production costs, Ford automotive parts were used. Another decade would pass before Ford’s first commercial Ford tractor – the Fordson Model F – rolled off the assembly line. Despite opposition from Ford Motor Co., Ford tractor development continued. Eventually, when that resistance proved…

Prince Albert tins came in handy off the farm, too I read with interest Clell Ballard’s article on Prince Albert tobacco tins in the January 2022 issue of Farm Collector. Here in the west, mining claim documents were required to be displayed on the mine site. The document most often was displayed in a Prince Albert can under a stack of rocks. When hiking in the Arizona mountains, an out-of-place stack of rocks is generally a sign that you are on an old claim. If you are lucky, the claim and can will still be there. This photo shows a 1957 claim with its Prince Albert can that I picked up in the mountains in the early 1980s. David Cave via email Fearless young farmhand makes attempt at riding draft…

Here in the U.K., older tractors are always cherished by collectors. These machines as seen as artifacts of our early days of farming, and there is an overwhelming feeling that they must be preserved for future generations. It’s wonderful that such passion for vintage tractors exists. It would be a sad world if we failed to appreciate and learn from past technologies, but all the same, tractors are relative newcomers on the farming scene. Many far older farming artifacts often go largely unnoticed. Rural relics that pre-date mechanization can be found all around us, and often these old objects tell us far more about our farming history than tractors do. On my travels (which I must admit are not big travels, for I rarely journey outside of North Wales) I…

This early 1870s chromolithograph of the Champion mowing machine, printed by Strobridge & Co., Cincinnati, is one of the very best examples of farm machinery advertising art. The artist used many different styles of letters and colors to illustrate the name and location of the company and its factory (or “Works,” as it was referred to in that era). Another unusual feature was the use of text on a ribbon to highlight the machines’ desirable features. Especially noteworthy are details seen in the background, including a steam locomotive passing over a stone bridge, a steam side-wheeler river boat, and the scene of a farmstead with a young family, their dog and a mowing machine passing over a wooden bridge. The central image is also very striking: an elegant team of…

Maryland July 7-10, 2022 Tuckahoe Steam and Gas Association 49th Annual Reunion and Show. Featuring: Allis-Chalmers Tractors, and Waterloo Manufacturing Company Gas Engines. Showgrounds located 5 miles north of Easton, MD on US Route 50. Contact Pat Harvey, PO Box 636, Easton, MD 21601. 410-822-9868; email: info@tuckahoesteam.org www.tuckahoesteam.org Minnesota SWAP MEET and COMING EVENTS! Minnesota: 45th annual Le Sueur County Pioneer Power Swap Meet, April 22-25, 2022. 6 miles east of Le Sueur, Minnesota. Expecting nearly 900 vendors. Free admission, vendors pay for inside or outside space. Website: pioneerpowershow.com Info: Mike and Julie Bluhm, email: julieb5841@gmail.com. Phone: Home 507-934-5841 or Cell: 507-327-4927. Inside space info: Barb Bruns, 507-345-3750, email: barb.bruns2@gmail.com. Oklahoma Oklahoma Steam & Gas Engine Shows 55th Anniversary, Pawnee, Okla., May 6-8, 2022. Featured Tractor, Gas Engine and Garden…

The wildly popular short story series, Alexander Botts and the Earthworm Tractor, from The Saturday Evening Post is back in print. Follow the world’s best tractor salesman as he travels the world selling his beloved crawler tractors. In this excerpt, Botts is at his first sales call and may have bitten off more than he can chew! “You are wasting your time,” the customer said. “I told that fool salesman who was here before that tractors would be no good to me. All my timber is four miles away on the other side of the Great Gumbo Swamp, which means that it would have to be brought through mud that is deeper and stickier than anything you ever seen, young feller.” “You would like to get it out, wouldn’t you?” I…