Dad and I on a cotton stalk chopper. Around 1959.


Untitled by CHS Girls Soccer, on Flickr

Dad and unknown hired hands stripping cotton, fall of 1962.


Untitled by CHS Girls Soccer, on Flickr

Dad and my brother on brother's new tractor, January 2004. Can't see my brother, but that's okay, it maintains a little privacy.


xphoto013 copy by CHS Girls Soccer, on Flickr

[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 4/26/2012 10:51p).]

Wow, those are some great pictures, especially the one of your grandpa from the 30's.

I'm sorry to hear that you recently lost your Dad. I lost mine a long time ago. I've found that there are really two ways to go. You can be sad that you lost him, or happy that you had him. You'll be better off when you can get to the point where you're happy to have had him. I've been to a lot of funerals where the preacher tried to get that point across, but it took a long time to sink in, as I am a slow learner.

[This message has been edited by powerbiscuit (edited 4/26/2012 11:00p).]

This old (Army?) truck used with the Bellville FD isn't farm equipment, but it's at my grandma's farm in Brenham. I'm an amateur photographer.



Our ranch tractor. Now equipped with a big A&M sticker!

great pictures canyon, sorry to hear about your loss.

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A wooden thrashing machine. Dad said he'd only seen two of these in his life. This one and one in the Smithsonian.

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My grandpa had one on his farm in Minnesota, I dont think its there anymore because after my uncle took over the farm he brought in the scrapyard and got rid of a lot of the old stuff. Im pretty sure that the great-grandpa bought it and earned some extra money by taking the thresher around and working with it on other farms besides his own.

But yeah Im a full generation younger than you and Ive seen one. Also Im no farmer, but isnt it a thresher and not a thrasher? Grandpa also had a Farmall with spiked metal wheels, but I didnt see it lately and I think they sold it to a scrapyard as well.

Edit:

Yeah the threshing machine looked like this.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/imrickndakota/2772582842/
Pretty much in the same condition as well hehe

Farmall looked like this


[This message has been edited by Randy03 (edited 4/27/2012 7:03a).]

One of my passions is tractors, great stuff!

I'm sure Agro has some equally neato pics

Thanks for sharing those pictures Canyon.

Spelling has never been my strong point. I looked at several online dictionaries, and it appears that thrash and thresh are used interchangeably. Thresh is probably the most common useage.

Good to hear there are wooden machines still out there, but they are rare in my part of the world.

Canyon, great pictures thanks for sharing! I have been meaning to get some of my family’s old pictures and scan them and this post has inspired me to do it. Below is a picture of Dad and me in front of their old D8 that had just had a yellow overhaul.



I also need to get some pictures of Dad’s old Deere tractors. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago about how “rich” folks have become bored with collecting cars and are now into collecting old farm machinery (hence the growth in prices). I believe the market has softened in recent years but hopefully it will rebound. I will inherit Dad’s someday and will most likely sell them as I have no emotional attachment to these particular tractors and I don’t feel comfortable using them on our current farm. All the old tractors we actually used have been sold.

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First and foremost is that the tractor companies were in a very competitive business, and reputation was everything. If you bought a green tractor and it was junk, you'd never buy another.

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This x1,000. My family was in the excavation business and Dad always said they never made any real money until they got their first CAT dozer. I wish this still true today. Our current John Deere 5425 has been a great tractor. However, our John Deere MX10 rotary cutter is a complete piece of junk and I cannot imagine ever buying another Deere implement. Furthermore, I cannot get the local John Deere representative to call me to discuss my problems.

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Tobacco harvester?

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I am not aware of any successful mechanical tobacco harvester (for many reasons). The old tobacco harvesting technology was rural high school males. The new technology is darker skinned fellows from further south.

not farming, but i didnt want to start another thread, heres some up close pics of our Seismic Vibroseis trucks i got to visit in the field yesterday.

Nothin like a 47,000 truck with a big ol' vibrator shaking the ever livin' hell outta the ground













Oh yeah, these woodgators for brushclearing were pretty badass in action too!

Cool pictures. We had some seismograph rigs cross some of our property when I was a kid, but I don't think we took any pictures of them. I wish we would have, but nobody in my immediate family too many pictures.

A car and a wheat field.



Peacock on a truck.



The old man's first tractor. Early 40's.



Mom and the barn. About 1937.



[This message has been edited by powerbiscuit (edited 4/27/2012 2:18p).]

Four digit license plates!

Great thread, CanyonAg. You coming to reunion next week?


4 digit plate on a 61 Chevy! My favorite year of full size Chevies!

My dad or Catag's grandfather saying goodbye to his Uncle in his Army Air Corps uniform just prior to him flying his C-47 to Hawaii from Seattle Washington and then on to the Philippines WWII.
That John Deere is still running and belongs to my neighbor.

amazing picture

Emc77 - No, say hello to everyone. Too many other family trips planned this spring. I had thought about going, but we went to Temple in March, had a trip planned (and cancelled) in April to Arizona, and are going to Columbus MS for "track night" in early June.

Agronomist -

That is an incredible photo, on so many levels. Glad the tractor is still around.

What Catag's Great grandfather road on his farm.


Thanks for thread Cayon.

where's that at jetch? west tx?

Gonzales County

The need for speed and complexion are apparently hereditary!

Badass vehicles there Jetch!

[This message has been edited by CATAGBQ04 (edited 4/27/2012 4:09p).]

CATAGs great-grandfather gets me everytime

This thread is awesome. Growing up in the panhandle the son of a farmer and grandson of a farmer, it is cool to see old tractors that I remember from my childhood.

To follow up on Canyon's first picture; this is the first tractor my grandfather bought new. 1940 G #9341. It was a big time rescue mission. South Texas is not kind to old iron like the panhandle is. Had to go .030 over with new pistons to clean it up. At some point it had been set up with the same wheel equipment as the one in Canyon's picture but JD records reflected it was shipped new to Harlingen Implement on skeleton steel rears and 24x5 fronts. It took some time and money to get that back original but I made it.

So there's my daughter on her great grandfather's ride.



ETA - if you drain the water from your G, when you want to move it around the yard and can't find the plug - a water bottle just does fit in the bottom of the head. There, I've protected it from showing up in the 'crazy tractors thread'.

[This message has been edited by Centerpole90 (edited 4/28/2012 1:51a).]

Canyon, was your father's G originally a low-radiator model? I see it has the standard radiator on now. I had a low radiator model '38 that was pretty much a serial number and that's it. It would have taken at least one donor tractor to get it back and of course the radiator had been changed. It was shipped originally to Lamesa when it was new.

I still have a very orginal JD Type W power unit (half a D) that would look good belted to your pump. I'll bet that pump would put a hump in it's back though.

I shot these outside the Days Gone By Museum in Portland, Tennessee.

John Deere B model I shot about 8 years ago near Broken Arrow, OK

These were all beside a rural Wisconsin road about an hour west of Green Bay. I took these photos about a year ago. I cannot remember the name of the nearest town.



















And an overall view:

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Canyon, was your father's G originally a low-radiator model?

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No, I'm pretty sure it is a newer model. Don't have access to the serial number right now, but IIRC it has the correct (factory) radiator.

You don't happen to know who bought your G from Lamesa, do you? Dad grew up just south of there, they were some of the most progressive farmers around. You could have one of theirs.

I'm about 99% sure they ran Gs, but I don't remember if they had a low-radiator.

BTW, I took the L and the JD trailer on the first page to the Hale County Farm and Ranch Museum today. Will post some photos and more info later.

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John Deere B model I shot about 8 years ago near Broken Arrow, OK

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MLK, dad referred to those with frame rails like that as "Cyclone" Bs. I'm not sure of the origin of the term.

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I still have a very orginal JD Type W power unit (half a D)

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From the Paul Armstrong estate sale, March 2009.



Big JD stationary engines...they look like the front end of a model D tractor to me[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/chs_girls_soccer/]CHS Girls Soccer, on Flickr


restored, unrestored by CHS Girls Soccer, on Flickr

[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 4/28/2012 4:27p).]

Here's a sequence of the sugar beet harvest. These are from some old slides I got from my grandparents. Someone earlier noticed two different sets of equipment. It looks as if a group of farmers took a tour of a sugar beet operation in California. Some of the pictures are from the tour, and I think some are from my grandad's farm. Anyway, here are some more pictures of them digging them, loading them on trucks and taking them to the processing plant.

Here are a few pictures of what I believe is the aquaducts they used for irrigation in California.







Irrigation in the panhandle in the 60's.





A 4 row wheat drill from the 60's.



I'd make these two pictures another brain teaser, but I don't know the answer. What does this contraption do with fire?

If y'all like this stuff, and have never been, you should try to make it to the old engine and tractor show in Temple. It's every year on the first weekend in October. I go every year and really enjoy it. They have demonstrations of old equipment (including a donkey-driven sugar cane press), a blacksmith shop, a tractor pull, and lots and lots of old tractors of every model and brand you've ever heard of. They also have home made ice cream and other stuff to eat, too.

Canyon,

The low radiator G was not much more than the transmission case and it was sitting outside Rio Hondo, Texas where it had been for a looooong time. I drug it out of the weeds with the hopes of finding the parts and a donor tractor to put it back together. I don't have the tractor anymore but I know where it is and I can dig up the serial number in the farm office. But unless you know your family owned tractor #X or have dealer records there it's hard to narrow down who's it was. JD can only tell you where they sent it, when, and what special equipment it had on it.


The origin of the term "Cyclone B" come from the carburetion of those 'pressed frame' or 'stamped frame' tractors. Notice that the first styled tractors had the angle iron frame rails of the unstyled tractors then the the last of them had the stamped steel frame rails. Those later tractors also had a redesigned head or intake manifold (note sure which) that swirled intake air to improve fuel/air mixture... the term they used.. "Cyclone" induction.

PB -

That my friend is a FLAME CULTIVATOR. Using propane gas jets and fire to kill weeds. Technology is still used today!

What do I win??????????????????

CP90-

Grandad used to tell dad, "Never fall in love with a piece of machinery." The serial number is not something he would have recorded, and even if he did, no such records survive. Thanks, though. And thanks for the explanation of 'cyclone'. I never could understand what the frame rails had to do with 'cyclone'.