Choosing a Small Farm Tractor

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Simplicity Sun Star mulching kit.
Simplicity Sun Star mulching kit.
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A typical, three-bladed, 40 inch mower deck.
A typical, three-bladed, 40 inch mower deck.
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Simplicity Sun Star with cart.
Simplicity Sun Star with cart.
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Deere's versatile 40 Loader fits most of its Two-Wheel Steer models and has a bucket width of 48 inches.
Deere's versatile 40 Loader fits most of its Two-Wheel Steer models and has a bucket width of 48 inches.
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A snow cab can be a handy (and usually inexpensive) accessory.
A snow cab can be a handy (and usually inexpensive) accessory.
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Dixon's ZTR 4422 riding mower.
Dixon's ZTR 4422 riding mower.
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John Deere's new Trailer can haul 1,000 lbs and not scar the lawn.
John Deere's new Trailer can haul 1,000 lbs and not scar the lawn.
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Kubota's Grand L, available in engine sizes from 25-37 PTO horsepower.
Kubota's Grand L, available in engine sizes from 25-37 PTO horsepower.
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Kubota's mid-size (17-24) B series.
Kubota's mid-size (17-24) B series.

How to choose and care for a small farm tractor, the farmsteader’s single best tool. (See the farm tractor photos in the image gallery.)

Choosing a Small Farm Tractor

Lawn and garden tractors? In MOTHER EARTH NEWS? Why, aren’t they for paunchy suburbanites to impress the neighbors with by trimming chemical-dosed lawns that would be better-used to graze sheep, or grow food, or exotic herbs of one sort or another? To be sure, a great many use their small tractors in such a capacity, but, like you I bet, I live on a place with just too much land to mow and too little to hay. I need a good measure of open space with a firm surface to haul garden supplies, logs for the wood stove, and grain for my daughter’s horse …say nothing of forage for the horse and small stock, who won’t eat the poplar and juniper that is trying to invade the pasture. Which means that I need to maintain a few acres of sod … turf … meadow … or “mowin,” as they call open but untilled land here in New England.

For my money (what little I have), since the cost-effective, reliable, long-life small tractor was perfected and prices stabilized in the ’80s, I’ve felt that a fully accessorized modern garden tractor has been the single best machine a country small-landholder can own. Powered by a hefty 10 to 20 horses and a multi-speed/high-torque automatic transmission, a tractor with attachments can do a better job at several times the speed, but at a fraction of the total cost of equivalent single-purpose machines. In effect, you are doing a dozen or more jobs with single engine and transmission and chassis rather than buying a dozen individually powered machines. A capable standalone rotary tiller, snowblower, mower, chipper-shredder, and lawn vac each costs $1,500 and more these days. A snow plow for your truck will cost $2,500 and even an old and very used full-scale tractor/bucket loader that much and more. But a tractor-mount, power takeoff-operated (PTO) tiller costs about $500, a snowblower attachment the same, while a set of cultivators or a snow blade costs only $250.

I know of no reasonably priced replacement for a small hydraulics-equipped tractor and its ability to power a log splitter, cordwood saw, and pull a trailer full of logs. The ease with which hydraulic power can be applied permits the tractor to power custom-rigged applications like a small hay baler, manure spreader, grain mill, conveyor, water pumps and much more.

  • Published on Feb 1, 1996
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