Self-Propelled Beauty

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Above: Two Wisconsin Model TFD 2-cylinder, 15 hp engines operate the baler: One drives the baler; the other handles the baling operation.

The day was bright and hot and there was a flurry of activity at the Miami Valley Steam Threshers Association's 58th annual show last summer at Pastime Park, Plain City, Ohio. A Russell steam engine was belted to a veneer lathe, an Eclipse steam engine was working a shingle mill, a pair of Rumely OilPull tractors was belted in tandem to a single Baker fan. Nearby, horse-powered wheat harvesting equipment took wheat from the field to the kitchen: threshing grain, pressing straw into bales, winnowing chaff from grain and grinding grain into flour.

In the midst of all that motion, a New Holland self-propelled hay baler was ready to go to work. At 3 p.m. the threshing crew would separate wheat from stalks using a big Rumely OilPull belted to a Red River Special separator. Then it would be time for Bob Bowersmith and his 1957 New Holland Model SP-166 self-propelled hay baler to take center stage.

A native of Plain City, Bob now lives in Radcliff, Ky. Retired from more than 24 years in the U.S. Army, he never lost touch of his roots in rural America, especially his hometown. Seven years ago, he and Jim Cassel discovered the unusual New Holland at an Indiana farm auction. Unfortunately, bidding did not reach the seller's reserve price. But the pair did not give up, contacting the owner on subsequent occasions and trying to work a deal. Finally, they succeeded. After completing restoration of the unit, the two now exhibit and demonstrate the New Holland at shows, including the Plain City show, where it is used in the wheat harvest.

Although New Holland had a solid track record of producing quality hay balers for many years, the company built just 305 of the self-propelled units. Always striving to modernize, mechanize and make life easier for farmers, New Holland successfully introduced many improvements in their hay-handling machines. The SP-166 was the company's first attempt to produce a machine to reduce the number of pieces of equipment a farmer needed to make hay.

New Holland was not the only manufacturer to develop self-propelled balers. Minneapolis-Moline brought out its Uni-Tractor in 1950. This machine was a unique power system upon which could be mounted a series of attachments, including a Uni-Windrower, a Uni-Forager (forage harvester), a Uni-Harvestor (combine), a Uni-Huskor (to harvest ear corn), a Uni-Picker/sheller (to harvest shelled corn) and the Uni-Baler (hay baler).