Anyone else learn to drive on a tractor?

Rusty

Rusty

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Remember the old tractors built in the 40's and 50's? Only electrical was in the ignition and battery, made of steel and cast iron, they had maybe one power take-off, and they could be rebuilt to last forever? Two small tires in front and two big ones in the rear? Fords, John Deere's, McCormick and a bunch of other makes?

I learned to drive on one and how to work the clutch and gearbox on it when I was 10 or 12 on my Uncle's farm. Made learning to row a stick shift on a car several years later a cinch. I didn't grow up on a farm but visited relatives during the summer and learned to drive tractors, buck hay, some other stuff.

I feel like I got in on the end of an era when many folks finally bailled out of the family farms. My mom and dad both grew up on them, but left to work other jobs. Felt privileged to experience part of it and glad I didn't have to do it for a living.

If you've ever harvested almonds in hundred degree weather, dragging canvas tarps around trees, shaking the nuts loose with the tractor's power take off and then knocking the ones that didn't fall off with a rubber wrapped baseball bat? Then you'll never forget the fuzz off the almonds drifting down on your sweaty body and driving you nearly mad with itching. I won't eat almonds to this day.

Anyway, did anyone else have similar experiences they recall, fondly or not?
 
Hello,
I learned to drive on my grandfathers 1954 FarmAll. When I was young we made the trip out to Illinois every summer, and for a week I'd wake up at 6:30 to help my grandpa feed cattle. He never had more than 250 head that I can recall, so he fed them from a PTO-driven grain wagon we hauled with his rusty old tractor. I absolutely loved helping him; the only negatives were that I was pretty clumsy with the hand throttle- upshifts always resulted in lugging- and that when you opened her up on the road after driving out of the feedlot, cow sh!t would fly off the tires in all directions. I haven't been out to visit in about eight years, but he still has that tractor, and it still runs well. Design philosophies were different back then.

Jeremy
 
Dad taught me to drive when I was 12 , right after WWII when you could get gas and tires again. Car was 1937 Pontiac. Everything was 3 speed stick shift on the floor then. Got my first restricted license when I was 14. No tests of any kind. Gave the guy 50 cents and filled out a form and my license came in the mail.

Worked on a hay baling crew summers of 46, 47, and 48 -- hot, hard, dirty work but I'm glad I did it. Tractors used were John Deere and FarmAll. No batteries as I recall. Magneto and spin the flywheel and hope for the best.

Some of the older tractors back then had steel wheels with lugs rather than rubber tires. All roads that were paved were full of signs saying, "tractors with lugs prohibited".
 
In my family, it was the tradition that when you were 14, you spent the summer with my Aunt and Uncle in the Connecticut Valley and worked on the area tobacco farms. In 1954 it was my turn.

My least favorite job was under the shade tents "suckering". You sat between the rows and scooted backward on your butt for miles in the mud picking the lowest, or "sucker" leaves off the young plants on each side of you. Picking mature leaves was a little easier and it paid better. I made ninety cents an hour, but more experienced workers were paid piecework and got six cents a "bint" which was a section of a row about 25 feet long.

In 1961, the farm was used as a set for a movie called "Parrish" with Troy Donahue and Connie Stevens. It was a predictible 1961, rich guy loves poor girl love story, but the depiction of the working of a shade grown tobacco farm was accurate. The foreman, was played by a Jamaican guy named Gladstone James. It wasn't much of a stretch, as he really was Gladstone James and he was the foreman when I worked there.

I spent about a month working under the shade tents then quit and went to work in the sun grown fields which was a little better. You got to stand up and walk instead of having to have to scoot on your butt or walk all bent over. In the sun grown fields, the whole plants are harvested and dried on the stalk, instead of individual leaves being picked and sewn together into packets and dried.

I made a dollar an hour and worked as a chopper, a hander, a spearer, and a loader. The chopper's job was to go down the rows with a "tomahawk" and chop down the plants. A crew of two handers and a spearer followed. The handers picked up the plants and held them in font of a lath with a spear head on it mounted on wheels. It looked kind of like a cannon with a spear where the barrel would be.

The spearer grabbed the plants and impaled them on the lath. When it was full, he handed it to the loader who rode along side on a rack being pulled by a tractor.

Unlike my more ambitions younger brother who spent several summers working there and made a ton of money, all of which he saved, I only worked one summer and promptly spent what little money I made.

Although I didn't make much money and hated every minute of the work, it was a great experience that gave me an appreciation for those who do agricultural work, and a strong conviction that I would never do it again.
 
I spent most of my summers on a dairy farm in northern Minnesota, owned by my Dad's cousins. They always had, and still have, a bunch of tractors from the 40s and 50s. Gas-powered 2 and 4 cylinder, all start by hand (either a crank in front or a flywheel on the side). They liked Allis-Chalmers and John Deere "B" models the best, but also have had Fords, FarmAlls, Internationals and Masseys. They bought all their equipment VERY used and repaired everything themselves. The only thing they stayed away from was Minneapolis-Moline, they didn't like those at all for some reason.

I drove the little Allis-Chalmers and Fords the most, either pulling a hay rack or a rake. The Deeres were set up with sickle mowers, and the bigger tractors were for pulling the baler, etc. I always liked the little gray Fords the best, really cool little tractors. Some day I might buy one, just for the hell of it.
 
I grew up in the city.
I spent my summers watching TV.
It instilled in me my lazy attitude.

:(
 
Been a while. Wow, what a memory zap.

Both of my grandfather's were farmers. I learned how to drive a on an old John Deere. My family was more interested in me getting off of a farm than learning how to stay on one.

I have ridden on the back of a tractor with family more times than I can count, planting tobacco.

I remember when my favorite pig, Porky, disappeared on the farm, and then we had fresh bacon for a while. I'll never forget looking down at my plate, and thinking, "That's Porky". :eek: :)

Nothing teaches you the cycles of life like living on a farm.
 
Yep, When I was a teenager for helping pull out treestumps, Hard to remember but I think it had 12 forward gears & 4 reverse or something weird like that?

Is that right or is my memory playing tricks? :confused:

Spiral
 
My summer job this year is dairy farmin'. Great fun, and I've picked up many different tricks to get the job done faster... One great trick is when scraping manure, be sure to drink lots of water beforehand and deprive yourself the use of the bathroom until you're done the job... By the end, you're whippin' down the aisles of the loafing barn in a heartbeat. Though the tractors are still somewhat primitive, they're a big step up from the antique ones that I see with my dad nearly every year... He's an antique tractor nut, and buys one for cheap up here, fixes them, and sells them to people in the US for a bit more, but still a reasonable price... We've always got 5-7 tractors kicking around here.

My first tractor driving experiences were probably from back when I was 10. I drove tractor while my dad walked behind and sprayed suckers and weeds from around the bases of hazelnut trees. I did that for a few years, but stopped after one too many times where I nearly dozed off, and one very memorable time when the tractor brushed a hornets' nest.

Now, all the tractor driving I do is out in the fields, far away from any bees or hornets. I do a bunch of haying as well, and Uncle Bill described it perfectly as "hot, hard, dirty work", and just like him, I'm glad I'm doing it. Farming's a wonderful way to make money, develop great working habits, and develop muscle along the way... Farming, in my eyes, is one of the more honest, hard-working sources of revenue that are valuable, but often less than appreciated...

As for driving stick, the tractor helped me a bunch, as did riding dirtbikes when I was smaller. I now own a Toyota 4Runner that takes me everywhere I need to go, and many places that I just plain -want- to go.
 
Before I drove a car, I thought tractors were racecars.
Scared my mom to see me bouncing around the field by myself.
Turned a few rows of dirt too.

I liked hunting for eggs in the barn
and digging potatoes.
And hoisting bales of soybean hay onto the trailer
then into the loft.
 
When I was in grades 5-8, we rented a house that had been the original house on a farm in California - chickens and oranges. The family that owned the farm (13 kids) had moved into a much larger house next door. I used to help in the Summer when boredom set in - even got paid sometimes. That got me on the seat of their IH tractor -- pulling the egg-collecting wagon (50,000 chickens -- all white), the orange collecting wagon (when the braceroes [sp?] came to pick), and plowing irrigation ditches. I thought it was a real treat! Sure made Driver's Ed. simple when I turned 16.
 
We didn't have tractors, but from about 13 years old on, most of my friends had cars. This was in the 50's, and there seemed to be a glut of old cars we could buy for $20 or so. They didn't make any cars during the war, so we had mostly models from the late 30's and mid 1940's.

We would get one, fix it up and drive it around the yard. Some kids played with toy cars in the sand pile, we had real ones and drove them around the woods and fields. We didn't need any license or registration as long as we stayed on our own property.

We would fill the car up with kids and take turns driving around until we ran out of gas. Then we would scrape up another .15 and send someone down to the gas station on his bike to buy another gallon.

I don't remember anyone ever getting hurt, and we never raced or drove fast - until we got older, got driving licenses, and could drive on the roads.
 
I NEED to learn how to drive one. I have about 5 acres of hayfield my neighbor cuts right now, but I have been saving for a Massey Ferguson 135 so I can do my own hay for my goats. However knife purchases are slowing my saving down. ;)
 
"That's Porky."

Gotta love it.

And Benaround's summer job...first job I had was a summer in Anaheim where the old Man dragged me down and made me apply. I think I was 15 or 16...made a buck thirty five an hour and spent the whole sum by summer's end.

..........

I learned to drive on a 62 VW van.
I'll never forget putting it into reverse at 40 miles per hour. Trans survived, though.


munk
 
Nope. My family was outta the farming business in my Great Grandfather's day. After that, it was the steel mills of the Allgheny...Then the backwoods of Meadville, PA.

Keith
 
I learned to drive on a go cart with a briggs and stratton 5 hp tiller motor on it. Once I proved my competence with that it was on to the snapper riding mower then onto the International Cub tractor with a belly mower. In case you haven't guessed I learned to drive from cutting fields of grass in Mississippi for the most part. The pressure of slaloming threw a street race course is no problems to me after the stresf of possibly hitting one of Momma's millions of flower pots in the yard.


Jeff
 
Yup. Learned to drive on a tractor. 1948 Farmall Cub. Magneto ignition and had a crank for emergency start.

We had four acres of rich "bottom" land. Grew veggies like potatoes, beans,... etc.

Got up at 5:00 AM to feed and water my chickens before heading off to school.

We had a four room house, outhouse, and no running water. Coal stove in the kitchen. Rest of the house was unheated.

Dad and I put in a bathroom. Iron sewage pipe. Oakum and lead to . I remember the gasloline blowtorch with the blue flame. I was maybe seven. The heat from it scared me. So did the power saw.

I hated it then, but romanticize the memories. The bitter winter cold. This was in Georgia, but I remember being SO cold. The austere existance of farming life. The poverty of the area.

But the tractor, ah the tractor. I loved it! When I was very small I used to ride standing in a special place to the left of the steering wheel. For hours and hours and Dad and I would talk over the roar of the unmuffled 4 cylnder flathead egine.

One day Dad let me drive it. I was overwhelmed! It took everything I had to turn the steering wheel.

There are memories that I will never forget. Learning to drive on a tractor is certainly one of them.

Thanks Rusty
 
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