Indholdsfortegnelse for April/May 2024 i Farm Collector

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Dan Millman If the past is any indication, the one thing we can always count on is change. In 1793, came the creation of the cotton gin. In 1834, the McCormick reaper was patented. The Industrial Revolution spurred innumerable inventions, and depending on the geographic area, this time of innovation began near the end of the 1700s with the use of coal as an efficient fuel for turning iron ore into iron. In the 1840s and ’50s, commercial agriculture grew following the increased use of factorymade equipment. This was made possible by cheap iron. Fast forward to the 1940s and a revolution began in agricultural technology that improved…

APRIL/MAY MYSTERY TOOLS The genius of pioneer inventors can confound us. Countless contraptions that revolutionized farming in the 19th and early 20th centuries have become contemporary curiosities, or even mysteries. Here are six sent in by readers. Do you know what they are? Answers to the April/May 2024 items will appear in the August/September 2024 issue. Answers for new items in this issue must be received by May 10, 2024. To submit photos: Send prints to Farm Collector, 1503 SW 42nd St., Topeka, KS 66609. Send digital images to editor@farmcollector.com. Photos should be taken in a well-lit area against a plain background. Include dimensions and any markings on the piece. We cannot guarantee every photo will be published, nor can we respond to inquiries regarding when photos will be published.…

ENGINE TOOL BOX Use ¾ in material, solid lumber works best. Attach the sides and ends to bottom from below the wood screws. Use 1in diameter x 25-½ in closet rod (wood dowel) for a carrying handle. Attach with ⅛ in wood dowel pin and cut off the excess. I cobbled up this simple wood toolbox to hold a few tools, an oiler, grease rag and a fuel funnel. The design is functional but you should consider adapting it to your particular needs. I used ¾ in clear pine for mine. A ¾ in-by-⅜ in deep rabbet around the bottom helps keep the box square. Be sure to attach the sides and ends with glue and install wood screws from the bottom, this keeps the box structurally tight. Finish nails…

Mike Thorne is a name known to many, many tractor enthusiasts, particularly those whose primary interest is in Ferguson and Massey Ferguson models, as Mike has assembled an almost unrivaled collection of the tractors of both marques. But before he decided to go down that route, he had been collecting tractors since the 1980s – machines of many makes, models, and vintages, some in good order, others wanting substantial work. In his time, he has acquired no less than 100 examples, and in this book, he takes the reader through them all, with individual entries on everyone – though he admits there are some that he has forgotten. So the reader will be treated to observations on a wide range of tractors, large or small, rare or common, good or…

While visiting Idaho on vacation in 2000, my brothers, Claude and Clell, and I went camping for a few days. We headed about 35 miles north of our hometown up to a small mountain lake near an old mining claim above 9,000 feet in the Sawtooth Mountains. It takes all day in a jeep to get up there using the remains of an old mining road. The Tip Top Mine was established in the 1890s and probably little or no gold or silver was ever taken out. We camped beside a small spring-fed lake down below the actual mineshaft. On our first morning in camp, we were surprised to see a young doe coming around, obviously very interested in what was going on. Over the next couple of days, she got…

A useful piece of equipment on the farm This page from a 1946 Ferguson System bulletin (opposite page) shows a Ferguson transport box kind of like the one shown in the photo Lenny Cornwell sent in for the December 2023 issue of Farm Collector. However, the Ferguson box is all steel. We had a Ford tractor/Ferguson System with the transport box on our farm in northwest Iowa near Terril for many years. We also had a power jack (shown in the same bulletin at left). I think ours was bought in 1946-’48. We used the transport box for many years on our dairy farm. It was a very useful piece of equipment. In another letter to the editor, another reader mentioned a wood transport box. That made me think someone…

TAXES Tax the farmer, tax his fowl;Tax the dog and tax his howl;Tax his hen and tax her egg;Let the bloomin’ mudsite beg;Tax his pig and tax his squeal;Tax his boots run down at heel;Tax his plow and tax his clothes,Tax the rags that wipe his nose;Tax his house and tax his bed;Tax the bald spot on his head;Tax the ox and tax the ass;Tax his “Henry,” tax his gas;Tax the road that he must passAnd make him travel o’er the grass.Tax his cow and tax his calf;Tax him if he dares to laugh;He is but a common manSo tax the cuss just all you can. Just in case you think tax pro-tests are a new phenomenon, the accompanying ditty was published in the May 1936 issue of Farm Power.…

LEE MILLER  AGE 12 LEE MILLER IS OUR FEATURED ARTIST FOR APRIL/MAY! Lee Miller, the son of Joshua and Lena Miller, Kendallville, Indiana, is this month’s featured artist. Lee will receive a Farm Collector T-shirt: Congratulations, Lee! Have a budding artist in your family? Send your kids’ or grandkids’ farm-related artwork to Farm Collector, and we’ll send a T-shirt to the monthly winner. Send submissions to Farm Collector, 1503 SW 42nd St., Topeka, KS 66609-1265. Please include the artist’s name, age and hometown and a recent photograph. A release form will be sent to the parents of each artist whose work is selected for publication; the release must be signed and returned to Farm Collector before the artist’s photo can be published. For more information, contact us at editor@farmcollector.com.…

The first tractor I ran was a 1936 Minneapolis-Moline Model Z. I was 6 years old when my brother (Oscar Haake Jr.) was drafted and left my dad, Oscar Haake Sr., really short of help. Dad showed me how to use the hand clutch on that Z and steering was just like on my pedal tractor, so it was easy. Dad made a track in the field and I just went back and forth while he worked a dirt scoop behind (I think he called it a Fresno). That’s how we leveled several spots in fields so irrigation water would flow for row crops. That was 1951. As I got older, I put in many hours on that Z. Only once did I have to walk home because I killed…

As a 4-year-old in the summer of 1935, Mike Rookstool observed his father and a crew of workmen unload hay into a barn. “A horse pulled on a rope that went into the barn and that made a fork come down to pick up a bunch of hay,” Mike says. “A guy inside pulled another rope that tripped it wherever he wanted the hay to drop. I was probably more in the way than not. I’m sure it wasn’t used anymore after Dad bought a baler in 1948. “I watched some men use a carrier rig one time after that,” he recalls. “They had a sling attached to the pulley hook, and were putting eight bales at a time into a barn near Pleasant Hope.” Mike’s wife, Marge, was in…