How To Buy That First Homestead Tractor
(Page 5 of 5)
September/October 1971
By J.V. DORNER
I'd like to close this dissertation with a few time-honored cliches:
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(1) Buy the biggest tractor you can afford, as long as it's easy to steer, start and otherwise operate. When all else is equal, a big tractor will sometimes beat a little tractor with that important margin of performance when the chips are down.
(2) Buy the newest or best tractor you can afford . . . AFTER you have all the land you need.
(3) Keep your tractor clean, change its oil and grease it according to schedule. Everybody says this . . . almost nobody does it. Poor maintenance is responsible for most tractor breakdowns.
A homesteader will do well to get the operators' and service manuals for his tractor when he buys the machine. If the machine is a used one these books will often have been lost and it may be necessary for the new owner to contact the nearest dealer or even the company's home office to obtain them. The manuals generally cost around $3.00 and are worth many times their weight in gold.
The tractors mentioned here will probably cost upwards of $250.00 with the International diesel, of course, being the most expensive. As with garden tractors, the best bargains are available at farm auctions or from private owners. Many times, you can find a "best buy" with an advertisement in the smaller local papers.
An acquaintance of mine found so many good bargains through the newspapers that he purchased three tractors. After selecting the one he wanted, he parked the other two along the road with "For Sale" signs on them. He claims that he drove such hard bargains in selling the surplus machines that the one he kept cost him nothing at all. Could be.
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