It’s easy to think you’ve seen it all before … easy, that is, until you pick up the December 2009 issue of Farm Collector.

As I survey the contents, my first reaction is like that of the elderly friend I remember from childhood. On hearing something that surprised or shocked, she exclaimed, “Well, I never,” signaling both wonderment and a sudden shortage of words.

As an editor, of course, I have at my immediate disposal mass quantities of words. The bounds of my profession, however, require sparing use of them. Accordingly, things in this issue that make me say wow, a contemporary translation of “well, I never”:

A 1958 John Deere combine, purposefully rolling through a field of wheat, flanked by a pair of brand new models looking for all the world like bodyguards protecting a rock star. A guy’s got to do what a guy’s got to do, but who had more fun that day, the guy in the vintage combine or the guys with climate control, heated mirrors and GPS?

The Delaware County (Ohio) Antique Farm Machinery Assn., which staged a complete demonstration of putting up hay from field to haymow. That kind of over-the-top effort tells the story of vintage equipment in a uniquely effective and integrated way. As show demonstrations go, this one is unusually demanding and requires a small army of truly dedicated volunteers, but the payoff is immense.

Then there are the people who think big but go small, the kind of guy who has the patience to shingle a barn roof one row at a time, and count that a good day’s work, or the guy who decides to build a 1/4-scale model of a tractor with the entire project’s engineering schematics housed only in his brain.

And there’s more: a tractor restorer who put other senses to work when vision was no longer available to him … the fact that a place like Gelli Newydd still exists … the bull blinder (hard to imagine how such a device was actually installed on an animal cantankerous enough to need it: Now there’s a YouTube video!) … and an avalanche of responses to the October What-Is-It mystery tools.

All of which brings to mind another of my elderly friend’s go-to expressions: “Have you ever seen the like?” Only in Farm Collector! Happy reading—

Eleven years ago, my youngest son – then 10 – made his first visit to an antique tractor show.

For two days, he had the run of the show grounds. He was a frequent flier on the steam locomotive, stood in the front row for every equipment demonstration he could find, delighted in the shoot ’em up Wild West show and sampled cream sodas, root beer and fresh lemonade with wild abandon.

In his pocket was a disposable camera with which to record his adventures. On one shot, I was the photographer: Wearing a huge grin, he posed in front of a 110 hp Case’s big back wheel, his head not quite reaching the wheel’s top edge, arms stretching out to trace the span of spokes.

The image is etched in my memory but not in his, for boy and camera became separated soon after. We retraced steps, we checked lost-and-found and followed up days later, but the camera was never seen again. And so it is with photographs: They capture a moment, but are ever after vulnerable to any number of mishaps. As a photographer, I have learned the hard way. The images that are most important to me are the ones I work the hardest to imprint upon my memory.

Perhaps you had better luck with your camera this show season. If so, send your favorite shots of equipment, demonstrations and collectors to Farm Collector! We’ll print the best of the bunch in our annual Show Photo issue (February 2010). It’s a terrific way to spread the word about your club’s show, share a one-of-a-kind display or lend a new perspective to old iron.

While Nov. 2 was the original deadline, we’ve extended the deadline to Nov. 20 for photos submitted by e-mail. We’ll publish as many as we have space for. Please send high quality digital images. Low-resolution digital photos do not reproduce well and will not be accepted.

Please provide names of people in the photos if you can, and tell us when and where the photo was taken, the name of the photographer and the show, and any other relevant information. Include your name and phone number, and e-mail your photos to editor@farmcollector.com. Remember: Nov. 20 is the new deadline.

We can’t wait to see your photos!

As you read this, kids across the country are settling back into familiar classroom routines.

Familiar to them, that is: not so familiar to those of us years separated from lessons in readin’, ’ritin’ and ’rithmatic – and totally alien to those who lived in the era when what we think of as old iron was new.

An examination administered in 1895 in Salina, Kan., sheds a bit of light on classrooms of that era. Assuming that any school’s curriculum focuses on that which has been determined to be the most essential knowledge to impart, the questions in this exam lend an interesting perspective on priorities of life in another era.

The precise application of this exam is unclear. Though initially identified as an eighth grade final examination, it was more likely used as a teachers’ exam. Either way, it offers a glimpse of what constituted education in the late 1800s. Consider just a few of the questions:

A wagon box is 2 feet deep, 10 feet long, and 3 feet wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold? If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cents/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare? What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 feet long at $20 per meter?

Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods? Write a bank check, a promissory note, and a receipt.

Show the territorial growth of the U.S. Who were Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn and Howe? Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean? Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.

They’re just exam questions, but the tone speaks to an era when every penny was accounted for, when history taught valuable lessons and when awareness of the world beyond was part of a basic life skills set. In a time we can only imagine, this was the stuff of learning – and the foundation of intellect that developed the complex machinery of agriculture. More than a century later and on many levels, these remain valuable lessons.

For a look at the complete exam, visit www.farmcollector.com/1895-school-exam.

Here at Farm Collector, it’s easy to keep a grip on our mission.

“Dedicated to the preservation of vintage farm equipment” is, after all, printed on the front cover of every issue. But it’s summer: What better time to stray off the beaten path?

American Industrial Machinery Since 1870, C.H. Wendel A Babcock country press from the 1880s. The working print shop display at Printers' Hall (on the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion grounds, Mt. Pleasant, Iowa) uses a Babcock press powered by a vertical steam engine.

And so it is that in the September 2009 issue we visit a different past — that of the weekly newspaper of 90 or 100 years ago. Don’t get nervous: We’re still talking cast iron machinery, line shafts and stationary steam engines. Like equipment on the farm, machinery in the print shop was big, heavy, cantankerous, noisy, dangerous and dirty. It was also elegantly designed, brilliantly conceived and often stupendously dependable.

The weekly newspaper not only delivered news to rural residents for whom no other media existed, it also often served as a small town’s printer. Need envelopes? Business forms? Tickets? Funeral programs? Wedding invitations? Sale bills? You’d talk to the boys at the newspaper’s job shop.

There you’d find sheer tonnage of cast iron designed to enhance and elevate the most fragile material imaginable: sheets of paper. Powered first by steam, later by line shafts and gas engines (and later still by electricity), Linotypes, presses, folders, trimmers and cutters made up an arsenal of equipment ready to meet any conceivable printing challenge.

For me, this is a sentimental journey. The dictionary defines “printer’s devil” as a trade apprentice. But among the pressmen at my father’s weekly newspaper, I am confident the term was used to describe the boss’s kid. A little girl in the print shop — hovering at the clacking Addressograph, sitting astride a massive roll of newsprint like a pony and rocking it gently, darting toward the press and grabbing just-printed sections just like the men did — was tolerated but not encouraged.

Times were different; no one thought to instruct a girl child in the intricacies of printing equipment. But memories loom clear decades later: the absolute danger of the massive paper cutter; the way eye contact and nods replaced speech when the press roared; the cacophony of sound that rose and fell in a bell curve, collapsing into the sweet quiet afterward when the paper was out for another week.

The country print shop is a relic of the past – unless, of course, you stray off the beaten path. Extra! Extra! Read all about Printers’ Hall in the September 2009 issue of Farm Collector!

Looking for a little something to perk up your road trips this summer?
Find a museum.

The big ones will do nicely, but if you really want to stumble on a funky little collection that captures the pulse of one tiny dot on the map, think small.

State historical societies and other organizations operate handsome facilities with vast collections maintained by professional curators. They’re an important part of our world and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But it’s hard to beat the appeal of a small town museum run by volunteers who care passionately about the history of their area.

Small, off-the-beaten-path museums have voracious appetites for literally everything that ever transpired locally. It may have been a flash in the pan, but it’s likely to be fairly well documented by the locals. In my hometown of Holton, Kan., for instance, the historical museum includes an exhibit on the silk industry that briefly thrived there many decades ago. Silk worms in northeast Kansas? Who’d have thought?

Rural communities nearly always have a strong agricultural tradition, and that shines in small museums. The past comes to life in a heartbeat when you learn about early local families’ struggles to settle the land and build communities — and it always comes back to farming and ranching. Relics of those struggles endure in small local collections, and supporting material gives terrific context.

The small local museums are invariably manned by enthusiastic volunteers who like nothing better than to share their stories and listen to one or two of yours. The best of the bunch can elaborate on just about anything in the collection, direct you to the best local diner and give road advisories.

The small, local museums don’t have displays of engines or tractors or steam engines like those you’ll encounter at your favorite antique iron show. But they deliver the rest of the story: The story of the people who bought and sold and used those machines, the heartbreak and folly and triumph that resulted as people worked together to settle a nation. This summer, why not take a detour from the interstate? Slip onto the back roads and find a diamond in the rough!

Also read about Big Bud’s specifications and where you can catch a glimspe of the caravan of six Chamberlain tractors from Australia.

Not your grandfather’s tractor: The Big Bud 16V-747 is the world’s largest tractor, featuring 900 hp and weighing 100,000 pounds. It is owned by Robert and Randy Williams, Big Sandy, Mont. The John Deere at lower left was their grandfather’s tractor, with about 20 hp.

If you’ve ever loaded a tractor or two on a trailer and hit the road, you know it’s no day at the beach. Any number of things can go wrong. But picture an operation that moves one tractor across five states with a nightmare trifecta: a load that’s over-height, over-width and over-weight.

That’s the scenario for a crew charged with hauling the world’s biggest tractor all the way from Havre, Mont., to Penfield, Ill., where it’ll be the belle of the ball at I&I Antique Tractor Club’s Historic Farm Days, July 9-12. The Big Bud 16V-747, also known as the “Montana Monster,” will be surrounded by other rare tractors at the show, which celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Classic Farm Tractors Calendar. All owners of tractors featured in the calendar during the past 20 years have been invited to attend the show and bring their tractors for a reunion of sorts.

Big Bud’s trek to Illinois will require planning, permits and patience, notes John Harvey, producer of the Classic Farm Tractors Calendar. He might have added persistence to this list, as the undertaking is devilishly complex. “A wide, heavy load of this kind is complicated to move on highways,” says Ron Harmon, the man in charge, “partly because every state has different rules and weight regulations to contend with. During construction season, roads can be closed with almost no warning. And weather’s always a factor too.” Because of the load’s size and weight, even a light rain causes a spray that can reduce visibility.

The route itself is hard to pin down. “We can have a route that works one day, and the next day they totally change it,” Ron says. “By the time we get on the road, we still won’t know the route. There are so many restrictions, and they won’t even tell you what those are until you’re within five days of the move. It’s all the unknowns … You do everything you can to plan, but it can change in a heartbeat.”

Further complicating the undertaking is the Fourth of July holiday. “A lot of states shut us down as early as Thursday for the holiday,” Ron says. The current route takes Big Bud through several major cities, including Minneapolis – and that means additional restrictions (for instance, most cities will only allow loads of this size to pass through in the wee hours of the morning).

Timing is everything. In theory the trip should take three days. But weather, route changes, weigh station stops and the holiday could wreak havoc with schedules, which become increasingly important as the show’s opening day approaches. The job is far from complete when the load arrives in Penfield. The tractor’s 8-feet tires and wheels have been removed and travel as a separate load: On arrival, those must be re-installed. And nothing that big happens in a hurry.

Big Bud rides on a special beam trailer that keeps it low. There are eight axles (five on the trailer and three on the truck) on the ground with total bridge length of 98 feet. When loaded on the trailer, the tractor measures 15 feet high, 13-1/2 feet wide and weighs 125,000 pounds.

“It’s not unlike moving a very large specialty piece of construction equipment,” Ron notes. “You just normally don’t do that over a holiday and during construction season.”

Historic Farm Days, July 9-12, I&I Club grounds on Hwy. 135 at Penfield, 35 minutes north of Champaign-Urbana.

One Big Boy

Big Bud’s tires are 8 feet tall. The tractor measures 14 feet from the ground to the top of the cab (a five-step steel ladder is used to reach the cab). The fuel tank holds 1,000 gallons.

The tractor weighs 50 tons (with no fuel in the tank), measures 20 feet, 10 inches wide and is 28 feet, 6 inches long. It covers an acre a minute, pulling an 80-foot field cultivator. (“In baseball,” notes John Harvey, “it’s 90 feet between bases.”) Modern tractors nudge 600 hp; built 33 years ago, the Big Bud 747 generates 900 hp. [Back to the top]

And Don’t Miss This!

If you go to Penfield, Ill., don’t miss the caravan of six Chamberlain tractors from Australia. The convoy will stop at the I&I show as part of the Aussies’ 5,000-mile “Trek Across America.” [Back to the top]

Jokes about farmers who squeeze every bit of usefulness out of everything on the farm have been around as long, well, as there have been farmers.

While some regard such behavior as the ideal, others mock it. True enough, thrift can be carried ridiculously far, but rooted as it is in a time when each man made his own way without benefit of government handouts, it speaks to admirable traits such as resourcefulness, discipline and creativity.

Today of course we live in a material world with (at least until recently) easy credit. We trade up and super-size it. Lately, though, an ailing economy has made many reconsider the farmer’s approach. These days a two-edged sword of economy and environmentalism is cutting swaths through consumerism. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Cobblers are busy, service shops are swamped and canning jars are in short supply. Suddenly it’s chic to be thrifty. Poor Richard is become a media darling.

Thriftiness generates its own rewards, to be sure. But what really appeals to me about the farmer’s philosophy is the way it engenders resourcefulness and creativity. The Depression-era kids who knew there was no budget for toys wasted no time in building their own — and suffered no permanent scarring as a result.

As they matured, those kids knew how things worked, knew how to fix things. And a good many knew how to make things (read about Harold Fleisch, who built three working steam engines from scratch). That kind of ingenuity is at the heart of the antique farm equipment hobby.

In the July 2009 issue of Farm Collector, resourcefulness is part of nearly every article. Toy makers experimented with new materials … experimental gas engines turned up in a junkyard … a cotton farmer invented implements to make the job easier … a unique tractor launched a new transmission … even the issue’s “What-Is-It” department continues that theme, featuring a handmade tool. The purpose of the crude but sturdy piece may never be known, but clearly it was useful to its maker or it would never have survived this long.

There’s not much glamour associated with baling wire and duct tape. Often it’s little more than a quick fix. But it is a gentle reminder of wisdom. As Benjamin Franklin urged, “For age and want save while you may, no morning sun lasts a whole day.”