All-Terrain Utility Vehicles

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WINTER

Winter affords an ATV owner many opportunities for work and fun. Get a set of tire chains, available from most dealers, and you can go virtually anywhere in snow or on ice. Several manufacturers make blades for the front or rear of the machine so you can clear snow from driveways and sidewalks, transforming the endless task of snow removal. One problem—your neighbors will begin dropping hints for you to plow their driveways, too. Because you will finish your work that much faster, clearing your neighbors' driveways shouldn't be a problem, and you might be able to make a little extra money.

GARDENING

When spring finally comes around, thoughts usually turn to gardening. The larger your garden, the more useful an ATV will be. Foxboro, Ontario, farmer Ken Cassidy uses his 20-year-old John Deere for nearly everything. "Our ATV is well-suited to the fields that are too small for full-size tractors," says Cassidy. Attachments such as disc plows, harrows, seeders, fertilizer spreaders and manure spreaders specially designed and sized for ATVs are available from some manufacturers and many accessory dealers.

The ATV also can help with landscaping and yard work. For large yards, there is even a tow-behind mower attachment with its own motor. A new yard can be leveled by towing an old bed frame behind the ATV or you can use a box scraper (a metal, rectangular, boxshaped attachment) for bigger jobs. After seeding a pasture, a piece of chain-link fence towed behind an ATV will put just enough dirt on the seeds to bury them.

SPECIALTY ATTACHMENTS

A front-end loader attachment can be a benefit when moving large items. Garage Toys makes the Groundhog model, capable of lifting up to 300 pounds nearly 4 feet in the air. Norwood Industries also manufactures a multiuse attachment, the Multi-Mate. A frame attaches to the front of the ATV from which a number of tools—front-end loader, fork lift, backhoe, three-point hitch, skidder, clump box and grader blade—can be operated by a 12-volt winch powered from the ATV. Norwood recommends using an ATV with a 350-cc or higher engine with the Multi-Mate. CDS, Inc. makes a backhoe/excavator called the Beaver Pro.

Because some people never outgrow playing in the mud, there is even an ATV specially designed for wet areas. The six-or eight-wheeled Argo has an enclosed body that floats. Part boat, part ATV, it will go anywhere. Cranberry growers in the Huntsville, Ontario, area use the Argo in their cranberry bogs. Tracks (wide, flat pieces of rubber with cleats on the bottom that wrap around the wheels), available for the Argo and other ATV models, let you travel through snow up to 2 feet deep, making it an all-weather machine.

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