Need help solving hay press mystery
Can anyone give me information on this salesman’s sample/scale model hay press? I would like to know the name or company it represented, or anything.
I bought this piece from a neighbor who was a well-known gunsmith. Our farm is on both sides of the road with the barn close to the road. One day he said he had something to show me. A couple days later, I stopped at his gun shop and he showed me this piece he had just bought on his yearly pheasant hunting trip to the Dakotas. I was very excited about this neat little baler. Before I left, I told him if he ever wanted to sell it, to let me know.
Some years later, he stopped at the farm and said he was selling stuff, including the baler. I bought it. He passed away two years later. He had told me the name of the manufacturer, but it didn’t prove to be right. The name on the baler had flaked off until it is no longer legible. I have taken it to some shows and run it with an electric motor with a reduction gear box. It runs very slow and draws a lot of interest.
It may have been built in the 1930s or ’40s. It measures 4 feet long, 16 inches wide, 22 inches tall. Any help would be appreciated.
Paul Kovalik,
phone (330) 416-4962
Unrolling and rerolling check wire
I have fond memories of check row planting corn. My dad had a McCormick two-row horse-drawn planter. I used to help fill the boxes. They were round with a dome lid attached to a spring. You could move the lid over to the side for filling. Our seed came in cloth bags.
I remember unrolling the check wire and rerolling it with the planter wheel as power. I walked behind. I think the horses kept pace with the clicking sound the planter made.
Later, as I grew up, I cultivated with a Gambles Farmcrest 30 two-row mounted cultivator, lengthwise and crosswise. The front end would get bouncy. I have many very fond memories of growing up on the farm in Yankton County, South Dakota. I really enjoy reading Farm Collector.
Al Barkl,
Hazelton, Idaho
Colors for an early Superior grain drill?
I am looking for information on the correct color(s), striping and lettering on a pre-1893 Superior one-row grain drill. It has a wood frame. I would sure appreciate any help I can get.
Dennis Schlichting,
2879 Q Ave.,
Rosalie, NE 68055
Correct colors for Ford 8N block and Dearborn implements?
I am interested in learning the correct colors to paint my Ford 8N motor block and Ford Dearborn implements. I believe Ford red is too orange and maybe New Holland red is too orange. I have been told the original color is vermillion but I do not know the brand name for it. Any help is appreciated.
James Mitchell,
PO Box 100, Slidell, TX 76267;
phone: (972) 978-6573
Missing that personal touch
Please let John Heath (Farm Collector, Letters, March 2023) know he isn’t alone. I also long for the old days when a human answered the phone. I also enjoyed the write-up on International Harvester’s 100th anniversary. I really enjoy the whole magazine. Keep up the fine job.
James Fisher,
Nappanee, Indiana
Prince Albert article brings back memories of old days on the farm
Regarding Clell Ballard’s article about Prince Albert in a can (Farm Collector, January 2022): Reading this article brought back memories of my youth. My dad, who lived from 1907-1992, raised cattle, hogs and hay, and had an orchard. He also had grass so he could sell seed to the seed company. He did what the article told about: He had two routes, driving a 1948 Ford 3/4-ton truck, and gave up one. He picked up cream and eggs on Monday and took it to the creamery on Tuesday. He then went to the hardware store and got things for customers. He had a permit to buy wholesale (there was no Walmart back then). On Tuesday he came back by the creamery and picked up empty cream cans.
His biggest complaint from the creamery was wild onion taste in the cream. He either got a check for the farmers or the checks were mailed to them. He also got milk cans of discarded milk that he took home and fed to the hogs. He stopped by the feed mill on his way home and got feed the people had ordered. The mill later burned down. Milk was shipped to the creamery in larger cans before dairy farms had to put in milk tanks. When the nearby creamery in Roanoke, Virginia, shut down, it put him out of business.
My uncle smoked Prince Albert in a can. He rolled his own smokes. We got empty cans and used them as storage for fish bait, pennies and small screws and bolts. There was always an empty can at his home until he quit smoking.
When I read the article about shoveling snow, it reminded me that we had no blade for the tractor back then. One year in the 1950s or early ’60s, it snowed and drifted in too deep for trucks to move and a private company was hired to clear the roads. In April, they came back and repaired fences they had pushed down. The man who smoked Prince Albert (and later quit) was found dead in his home during a snowstorm in 1978. The neighbor, who hadn’t seen any tracks in the snow leading to the mailbox for two or three days, called the sheriff.
Joe Huffman, Buchanan, Virginia
Send letters to:
Farm Collector Editorial
1503 SW 42nd St.
Topeka, KS 66609;
fax: (785) 274-4385;
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Originally published as “Letter to the Editor'” in the June 2023 issue of Farm Collector magazine.
