A Vintage farm Equipment Welcome in New York
While on vacation this spring in Ohio, my wife and I were impressed with the beautiful farmland, and commented on the numerous vintage farm tools cleverly displayed near picturesque farm driveways.
On our return home, I decided to create my own vintage farm equipment welcome near the entrance to our small farm here in western New York. I hauled from the back lot an old International Harvester “Little Genius” two-bottom plow and McCormick No. 6 mower.
Both implements were in acceptable condition with no missing parts. I placed the implements on concrete blocks to elevate them, planted a tree between them, and landscaped the surrounding area with landscape fabric and wood chips piled high enough to conceal the concrete blocks. Finally, centered between the plow and mower is a wooden sign I made with our address number on it.
Many positive comments from passersby have convinced me that the project is a success. Perhaps this will encourage others.
I am a retired firefighter farming what remains of the land that has been in my family for generations. This provides me an excuse to keep my many farm collectibles, and my Farmall tractors.
–Gene Preston, Rochester, NY email: epreston@eznet.net.
Good old days, yes, but hard work!
I enjoy your magazine very much, and look forward to the new issue each month. I think it is good for each of us to go back in memory, and see where we came from. But I doubt very much if very many of us would care to go back in real life, with all the hard work and everything that the old timers had to endure. I grew up in southern Kentucky, farming with horses and mules until I was 20 (in 1950), then moved to Illinois and learned to drive a tractor on the farm.
The old wagon shown in this photo was owned by Lester Beery from the 1920s or early ’30s and was used (but always shedded) until his death in 1966. Then his son, Everett Beery, used it on the farm until 1985. A drawbar hitch was fastened to the original tongue and pulled behind the tractor to sow oats, wheat and other grass seed. Everett died in 1990 and the wagon went into the flower bed after I purchased it from Everett’s daughter in 1997 (and yes, it gets water seal on it every year).
Thanks for all the old memories!
-James E. Parsley, Sullivan, IL
