Farming for Self-Sufficiency-Independece on a 5-acre farm
(Page 2 of 9)
I must explain here that Harry Ferguson revolutionized
tractor work when he invented the three-point linkage
(which has now been adopted on most tractors), and for the
first time made it possible to use tractors in confined
areas of ground. Hitherto a tractor hauled a set of plough
shares mounted on wheels-like a kind of cumbersome
gun-carriage being dragged along behind the tractor. The
ploughs could (in some cases) be lifted out of the ground
by locking the carrying bar to the wheels so that the
turning of the wheels lifted the ploughs up into the air,
and then the tractor could be turned fairly easily. But
even so it was difficult to plough the headlands,
impossible to plough into the corners, and impossible to
plough right up against the hedge.
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The three-point linkage changed all this, and made the big
tractor a possible implement for using in small gardens.
The plough was now mounted on three arms which stuck out of
the back of the tractor, two of them activated by the
hydraulics. Wheels are dispensed with, and the equipment is
compact in the extreme. By pulling a lever the driver can
whip the ploughs right out of the ground when it is easy to
back the tractor into any odd corner and plough right up
into the hedge. Most other implements can be three point
mounted too, and thus used with the same ease and
maneuverability. The three-point linkage undoubtedly saved
what was left of the hedges of England, for it made it easy
to plough right up to a hedge. In the old dragged-plough
days ploughing small fields was intolerable, and farmers
were bulldozing out their hedges to knock small fields into
bigger ones as fast as they could. Now this process has
been slowed down at any rate, if not stayed.
As to the costs, and general bother, of the big tractor, I
have sorrowfully to report that my machine has cost me over
its purchase price already in repairs. Being a diesel it is
hard to start: if not used frequently its batteries get
flat and the high compression engine is very hard to turn.
I either have to leave it on top of a hill and run it down
to start it, or else use a jump-lead from my car battery,
and it canes that. Alternatively I take the tractor
batteries out (and they are very heavy!) and put them on
charge with a trickle-charger (yes, we now are on the
electric mains). As for fuel oil for the diesel, to run it
economically, in Britain at least, you will have to use
duty-free oil. To obtain this you will either have to have
your own large storage tank, or else buy at cost price from
neighboring farmers. Diesel fuel you buy in garages is
taxed, and nearly twice the money. But our tractor has many
uses. It ploughs both field and large garden, it harrows
the pastures, it hauls firewood from the forest, it cuts
grass for hay, it turns and tedders the hay, it carries the
bales, it pulls a muck-spreader that we borrow from a
neighbor when we have a lot of muck to spread, or when we
have a little it carries that little in its link-box-a kind
of scoop that fits on to the three-point linkage. The
fore-end loader has a fork attachment which will load muck
into a muck-spreader very quickly indeed, or a dozer
attachment which can be used for leveling land.
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