The Plight of the Collector:

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Jerome Then keeping a watchful eye on the Mogul in operation at a farm show.

When Jerome Then was a 7-year-old kid living on the family farm about a mile from Sartell, Minn., he fell in love with farm engines.

'I recall seeing them run,' he says. 'One was used to mix concrete when my father built a new barn, and we had two we used regularly on the farm, one to run the vacuum pump for the milking machines, and the other to pump water to cool the milk and provide water for the livestock. Many, many times I was sent out late in the evening to shut this one off after it had pumped water long enough to cool the milk.'

The other one was difficult to start: he remembers his mother struggling with it when she went out to milk. 'That was during harvest time, when my dad was already working out in the field,' he says.

Both of these were Fairbanks-Morse engines, so it is no surprise that when Jerome started collecting and restoring farm engines a dozen years ago, he picked up three of them. 'They're not real collectible - they're little Model D's like we had on the farm - but two of the three are mounted on a channel iron frame that runs a little Fairbanks-Morse piston-type water pump, which does make them fairly collectible. Fairbanks also used the little D to run the air compressor to start the larger Fairbanks-Morse diesel engine.'

Despite Jerome's history with Fairbanks-Morse engines, the ones he has aren't his favorite farm engines.

'That would be the Mogul, manufactured by International Harvester back in 1915,' the 73-year-old rural St. Cloud, Minn., collector says. Jerome also has proof of that engine's age, making it probably the oldest in his collection of three dozen engines.

The Mogul is basically the same engine type used in International Harvester's Mogul tractors of that era, although Jerome's 4 hp engine is much smaller. 'This one is kind of rare and difficult to find. It's the kind of engine that attracts your attention. I like it because it's so well built. It seems like back then, they built the engines as good as they knew how.

'They didn't spare anything. This one is a Mogul sideshaft engine, meaning the shaft running along the side of the engine controls the opening and closing of the valves, and operates the magneto. It's a beautiful engine to watch run. I admire the craftsmanship and workmanship these people were capable of 85 years ago.'

Jerome exhibits the Mogul at threshing shows. But because it's a big engine, he's devised a special way to start it. 'I have a little bit of a heart problem, and the doctor didn't think it would be good for me to crank up that Mogul. It usually starts pretty good, but it can get fussy sometimes. So, to keep the doctor and my wife happy, I had to devise a method to start this big engine that would be a lot less strenuous.' The solution came in the form of a small International Harvester LB engine.