I recently read a neat little book titled The Man Behind the Plow: Robert N. Tate, Early Partner of John Deere.

Written by Connie Fairfield Ganz, Tate’s great-great-great-granddaughter, the story is based upon extensive diaries kept by Mr. Tate. These diaries covered events from his birth in England on May 31, 1804 (written much later), through Jan. 7, 1883, about three years before his death on March 7, 1886.

The account chronicles Tate’s early life in England, where he learned the “trade of whitesmith and bell hanging.” He sailed from England to Canada in 1830, and then traveled overland to Michigan where be began to work as a blacksmith. A year later, Tate traveled to New York City, by foot, ferry boat, stage coach and canal boat.

In New York City, Tate worked in a foundry, married and had children. However, after the hard times caused by the Panic of 1837, the Tate family decided to go west. They settled near Dixon, Ill., and Robert Tate became a homesteader. For several years he struggled to eke out a living on the farm. In the spring of 1841, in dire need of cash, Tate went back to New York by himself and resumed work at the foundry. While returning to Illinois in the fall of 1842, Tate’s steam ship was wrecked on Lake Erie. He, however, survived and soon was home and farming again.

In 1845, Tate traveled to Grand Detour to do machine work and came to the attention of John Deere and Leonard Andrus, in whose factory he had installed a steam engine and a power lathe. Tate began to work in the Deere and Andrus shop making hoes. In 1847 or 1848, “Deere took it into his head to dissolve partnership (with Andrus), which they soon after did.”

Deere and Tate moved to Moline and became partners in Deere & Tate Co. Neither of the two men had much of a head for finance, so John M. Gould was made a partner and the firm became Deere, Tate & Gould. In 1852, the partnership was dissolved, and Tate began making plows and wagons on his own, until 1856, when he took on Charles Buford as partner. That partnership lasted until 1865, when Tate sold out and retired with $25,000 (almost $350,000 in today's money). Buford & Tate became the Rock Island Plow Co. in 1884.

Tate lived in retirement in Illinois until 1872, when he and his family moved to California, where he died in 1886.

Robert Tate was a keen newspaper reader and observer of current events, and he made many references to those events in his diary. Ms. Ganz has done an excellent job of researching these references and includes detailed descriptions of them in the book. This not only brings Tate’s diary entries to life, but helps the modern reader to understand some of the more obscure references.

While the book doesn’t contain much detail about farm machinery, it gives a fascinating glimpse of life in this country during the nineteenth century. It was quite interesting to an old history buff like myself.

What’s a grown boy to do when he wants a 1/16-scale model of his favorite collectible farm tractor?

My model Huber collection.

	A box of toy tractor parts.
	Huber Roto-rack separator.
	A Huber LC and L on rubber.
	Huber HK on steel.
	Huber HK on rubber.
	Huber B.
	Huber BG grader.
	Minneapolis-Moline Twin City.

Unless you want a newer model John Deere of an IH-Case, you will look long and hard to find what you want. If you want a model of an older antique tractor or a classic tractor, you can look on eBay or go to a toy show or, maybe, find an auction with an old toy. And most times those toys are just about shot.

But what do you do if you want a Huber tractor, for instance. You will be hard pressed to find one. None are being made today.

Long ago Hubley made a few copies of Huber steam traction engines and steam road rollers. Tootsie toys made a few copies of road rollers, but not 1/16 scale. In the 1920s, a German firm made and sold Huber steam road rollers, but finding one of those is tough and expensive. Besides, those are not farm tractors.

Ertl made one Huber Model L tractor on steel wheels. Frankly, it was a rather crude production not even close to the quality toy for which Ertl is known. Later a collection of cast aluminum Huber toys was made; a Roto-rack separator, a Super Four cross-motor, an HK on steel wheels and a Model B on rubber. All of those are long out of production.

So what if you wanted a more modern HK on rubber? You are out of luck unless you are lucky enough to find one and convert it. What if you wanted a Model L on rubber? Or an LC Huber? Nothing there either.

You could do as Jim Gibbons of Canada did. He was fortunate enough to find a couple of Model L tractors. He converted on L to rubber, added head and taillights and a battery. For the LC, he made major modifications to the L to add drop axles, eliminate the wide front end, construct a steer gear and post, fabricate a Huber hitch and simply make a new tractor.

Me? I have in my collection two of the very early cast iron steam road rollers. I have a Hubley Steam Traction Engine and a Hubley Steam Road Roller. I bought a rough cast aluminum copy of a Roto-rack separator that was just parts and pieces. Although the castings were rough, they cleaned up very well, but I had to furnish all the hardware and make a few missing parts.

I was fortunate also to be able to find two HK tractors. One I kept as found. The other, I located a set of IH wheels with rubber tires and painted the tractor red (as it was painted in 1941 and 1942). One day I’ll find the round spoke F&H wheels similar to those Huber used and put those on the tractor. Perhaps wheels with rubber tires from a John Deere Model D will fill the bill.

Huber built four versions of its only styled tractor, the Model B. I would like to have one tractor of each model; a tricycle cultivating tractor, a wide front end style, an orchard tractor and the grader. So far, I have located three Model B Huber tractors. One, I kept as the original tricycle cultivating tractor. One I made serious modifications to for an early tricycle grader tractor. Currently, I am completely reworking another to make an orchard tractor: widening the front end, lowering the rear end and making a set of fenders. If I ever find another Model B, I’ll make the easiest transformation by cutting off the front axle stub and adding a wide front end.

I still keep my eyes peeled for a Super Four cross-motor. One day perhaps I can add that to my Huber collection.

Another tractor that caught my attention was the 1934-37 Minneapolis-Moline Twin City Model J. None are on the market. I found a relic painted John Deere green and yellow. With just a little work and paint, I now have a great looking Model J Twin City MM tractor.

Sam Moore

From the pages of the Rural New-Yorker...

A Snake Story, June 23, 1883
The best Jersey cow of a writer in the N.Y. Times, a very quiet, petted animal, and a remarkably steady and even milker, came home a short time ago for three afternoons consecutively with less than the usual quantity of milk. This caused inquiry and a watch was kept upon the cow. The cause was discovered by an accident. The cow was lying down in somewhat deep grass near a row of pear trees, when examining the pear blossoms and casually looking over to where the cow was lying, a large black-snake was seen quietly sucking the cow, which seemed quite oblivious of the liberty taken with her. The snake was killed, and was 49 inches long and 7-1/2 inches round at the largest part. It was perfectly gorged with milk.

How Cheap Can We Live? Oct. 31, 1857
Pretty cheap, if we please. Witness a Mr. Thoreau, of Massachusetts, who having borrowed an axe, went down to the shores of Walden Pond, where he built a hut of hewn logs, which he occupied for two years, supporting himself on fruits of the earth, raised by his own hands. During eight months of this period he kept an account of his expenses, which amounted to $60, including $29 paid for materials for his house. (About $1,370 and $660 in today’s terms, respectively. – Ed.)

Sure and Safe Remedies for Fits, May 2, 1850
For a Fit of Passion – Walk out in the open air; you may speak your mind to the winds without hurting anyone, or proclaiming yourself to be a simpleton.

For a Fit of Idleness – Count the tickings of a clock. Do this for one hour, and you will be glad to pull off your coat and go to work.

For a Fit of Extravagance and Folly – Go to the workhouse, or speak with the ragged and wretched inmates of a jail, and you will be convinced that “Who makes his bed of brier and thorn, Must be content to lie forlorn.”

For a Fit of Ambition – Go into the church-yard and read the grave stones; they will tell you the end of ambition. The grave will soon be your bedchamber, earth your pillow, corruption your father, and the worm your mother and sister.

And, on that cheerful note, I'll end this look at the wit and wisdom of the Rural New-Yorker, first published on Jan. 3, 1850.

Sam Moore

The other afternoon, I was working in my shop, tinkering with a John Blue tractor.

The battery was low so I’d hooked up the battery charger and got it started. As I reached in to unclip one of the charger cables from the battery terminal, the whirling fan blades caught the ring and middle fingers of my right hand. Blood flew everywhere and my poor fingers were pretty well mangled, necessitating a trip to the hospital emergency room.

After a nurse cleaned up the wounds, gave me a tetanus shot and determined that nothing was broken, a doctor sat down to sew up the lacerations. He, of course, wanted to know how the injury had happened, which, when I told him, opened a discussion of old tractors.

The doctor confessed that he’d wanted an old tractor for a long time. Oh, he lived in a nice suburb on a regular-sized lot and had absolutely no use for a tractor — but that didn’t matter — he wanted one!

Sometime earlier, the good doctor had seen, in a local trader-type newspaper, a Caterpillar D2 with a bulldozer blade advertised for sale. He admitted that a crawler tractor probably wasn’t the best choice to maintain a city lot, but he liked it. When he mentioned to his wife that he was thinking of buying the D2, she, of course, thought he’d become unhinged — “What in the world are you going to do with something like that?” “Are you crazy?” “What will the neighbors think?” — was the gist of her reaction to the news. It didn’t help when Doc told her he’d just park the little Cat in the yard and look at it; and besides, just think of how handy it’d be in the winter for plowing snow from the drive.

Anyway, someone else beat him to the Cat, which undoubtedly saved his marriage, but I predict he’ll own a tractor someday.

During the course of the conversation, the doctor mentioned that if his wife wanted to buy an expensive painting to “hang on the wall and just look at” that was no problem, but if he wanted an old tractor “just to look at” there was war in camp.

The next day, while I was sitting, nursing my sore hand and castigating myself for doing something so stupid, I began thinking of what Doc had said.

It’s funny about the dynamics between husbands and wives when it comes to collecting. A husband who has thousands of dollars worth of antique tools in the garage, complains because his wife buys a couple more Norman Rockwell plates. I have a friend who, when he buys another tractor (which isn’t often), feels compelled to sneak it home when his wife isn’t there and hide it in a shed for several months. Then, when the missus finally discovers it, he’ll say off-handedly: “Aw, that old thing. I’ve had it forever.” He says she may grumble because he has too many tractors, but it’s nothing compared to her wrath when she knows he just bought something.

Others reluctantly tolerate their mate’s overwhelming need to own “just one more” of whatever gewgaw or artifact he or she collects, while some (not many it seems, based upon my conversations with fellow collectors) are enthusiastic supporters of the other’s hobby. Luckily, I fall into the latter category; Nancy has always been fully behind my hobby, and has helped and encouraged me every step of the way. Even when that hobby results in her having to take me to the emergency room.

Thanks, Babe!

Shortly after the first hay presses came to the farm, farmers began to look for easier ways to handle bales rather than hoisting them by their wires. 

	Figure 1.
	Figure 2. Click the images for larger versions.

They turned to their local blacksmiths for help. Soon the bale hook (or hay hook) became a popular item.

There were as many different styles and shapes as there were blacksmiths and farmers. Many farmers wanted a hook just a little different from his neighbor’s so they could tell their hooks apart. Blacksmiths were more than willing to help. Besides, it was difficult for a blacksmith to make any two hooks exactly alike.

Enterprising businessmen soon got into the act. They could make standard hooks of the same size and shape and mass-produce them for the commercial market. There were D-shaped models with wood handles, T-shaped models with wood handles, T-shaped with steel handles. Some had long shanks, some with short shanks. All served the general purpose of providing farmers with a device to more easily handle bales of hay or straw.

There evolved some really unusual hooks. One of the most unusual I’ve come across is the Flippo Hook (Figure 1). It originated in Nebraska. It has a solid metal handle with a thumb-operated trigger release for the hook.

When the farmer had lifted the bale and was about to release it, all he had to do was push the thumb button and the hook released. The bale was free. To reset the hook, he pressed the thumb button again. A spring steel spring pushed down on the hook and locked it into place readying it for the next bale lift (Figure 2).

Figure 3.

Most farmers of the time also heated with wood. It was quite a chore to stack cordwood, a process that resulted in many pinched fingers.

A company in Connecticut solved that problem. They developed a special hook to stack cordwood. It had a T-shaped wood handle. The shank extended a short way — about 2 inches — then made a distinct right angle before the hook started. That allowed the woodsman to hook one end of a piece of wood to lift the log to stack wood (Figure 3).

When the log was nearly in place, he had only to press down on the T-handle to release the hook from the end of the log. He could push the log into place with his other hand, fitting the piece neatly in place — and no pinched fingers.

	The Library of Congress/ Chronicling America The front page of the New York Tribune, Jan. 1, 1880.

What follows are excerpts from vintage newspapers with blogger Sam Moore’s asides set in italics. — Ed.

Automatic Cow-Milker, July 13, 1878
The Automatic Cow-Milker is a sterling-silver tube with highly polished surface, and in all respects a nice piece of work. The tubes are sold in sets of four attached to each other by strips of leather, and seen to be as convenient a contrivance for lessening the labors of the dairy as has been introduced. (A Colonel Weld, who tried the device, wrote: “I have tried the Automatic Cow-Milker (and) it worked well on one cow repeatedly. I have no hesitation saying that the milker is a valuable article in any dairy, especially for cows with sore or wounded teats, and for milking very short-teated cows, and I think it would be particularly convenient for gentlemen having one or more cows, and liable to be left, now and then, without a person to milk them when changing servants.”

(Don't you wonder why a “gentleman” with only one or two cows couldn’t manage to milk them by hand himself?)

Big Profits in Ice, Feb. 5, 1859
Several new ice houses have been erected on the banks of the Hudson during the present winter. They have been, or are being, filled. The season thus far has been unusually favorable. The Kingston Journal says there are 99,000 tons of ice gathered, valued at half a million dollars! If correct, it’s safe to say that more than 300,000 tons are already stored on the Hudson — worth more than a million and a half of dollars! There is certainly a very handsome crop.

Birth of the USDA, May 24, 1862
The bill establishing the Department of Agriculture has passed both Houses of Congress, and only requires the signature of the President to become a law (President Lincoln signed the bill on May 15, 1862). The act creates a new Department, distinct from all others, at the head of which is to be a Commissioner, with a salary of $3,000. (About $64,000 in today’s terms.)

Advice, Jan. 10, 1850
It should be the aim of young men to go into good society. We do not mean the rich, the proud, and fashionable, but the society of the wise, the intelligent, and good.

How To Cook A Husband, Feb. 5, 1859
The time has arrived in the year for the preparation of many good things, and I have no doubt that the following will prove to be the most valuable in the catalogue of recipes. To cook a husband, as Mrs. Glass said of the hare, you must first catch him. Having done so, the mode of cooking him, so as to make a good dish of him, is as follows:

Many good husbands are spoiled in the cooking; some women go about as if their husbands were bladders, and blow them up; others keep them constantly in hot water, while others freeze them by conjugal coolness; some smother them in hatred, contention, and variance, and some keep them in pickle all their lives. These women always serve them up with hot tongue sauce. Now, it cannot be supposed that a husband will be tender and good if managed in this way; but they are, on the contrary, very delicious when managed as follows: Get a large jar of faithfulness (which every good wife has on hand), place your husband in it, and set him near the fire of conjugal love; let the fire be pretty hot; especially let it be clear, but above all let the heat be constant. Cover him with affection, kindness, and subjection, garnished with modest and becoming familiarity, and spice with pleasantry, and if you add kisses and other confectionaries, let them be accompanied with a sufficient portion of secrecy, mixed with prudence and moderation. We advise all good wives to try this recipe, and realize what an admirable dish a husband makes when properly cooked.

More next time.

Frugality was a way of life on the farm in our grandparents’ day.

Farmers did not have an unlimited source of income. They struggled to make ends meet. They lived by the old New England maxim: “Use it up, wear it out; make it do, or do without.”

For example, the farmer who broke a 150-foot length of 3/4- or 1-inch diameter rope while hoisting hay into his haymow could hardly afford to buy a new rope. Instead, he had to splice the rope. For him, that might not have been hard to do. But today, try to find someone who can splice a rope. That is another rope trick that has not been passed down through the generations.

The farmer mentioned above would need to make a so-called “short splice.” The short splice will be as strong as the original rope, but it will make a slight increase in the diameter of the rope. It can be used only in places where this increase in diameter will not seriously affect the operation of the rope. In most cases, that was not a problem with the hoisting hay rope as it traveled through the series of pulleys and sheaves as it does its work.

	Figure 1.
	Figure 2.
	Figure 3.
	Figure 4.
	Figure 5. Click the images for larger versions.

Here’s a way to make a short splice:

1. Cut the rope ends evenly.

2. Untwist the strands at the end of the rope about six or seven turns (Figure 1).

3. Tie three or four turns of string around each rope where the strands begin separating.

4. To make them easier to braid, tie two or three turns of string around the end of each of the strands (Figure 2).

5. Pull back the strands of each rope so they do not cross each other. Push the rope ends together with the separate strands intermingled. Each strand of each end should be between two strands of the other end of the rope.

6. Tie the three loose ends of the left hand rope to the right rope to keep them together (Figure 3).

7. Cut the string binding off the left end of the rope. This leaves strands free for braiding.

8. Take a strand from the right rope and bring it up over the nearest strand on the left rope, down under the next strand, and back up again. It is easier to use an awl or some other device to lift the strands on the left rope to open a space to weave the strand from the right rope through it (Figure 4). Repeat the operation on each of the three strands. Give each strand at least two more tucks.

9. Now move to the right rope. Cut the string binding off that rope. Repeat step 8 for the right rope.

10. Cut off all loose ends and roll the splice on a hard surface to smooth it (Figure 5).

There: You’ve just spliced a rope. You have a nice, neat splice that will be as strong as the original rope — and it didn’t cost a dime. Now that you know how, practice just a bit with some old rope. Soon you too will be able to splice a rope just like Grandpa used to do. He would be proud of you.