First Day on a John Deere Model A

Read about how this young tractor operator studied at the school of hard knocks as a child and was bested by a clutch.

By Lloyd Munson
Published on January 14, 2021
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by Farm Collector archive

I was only 11 when I first drove a John Deere tractor. It was the summer of 1956. We were in a hay field on our farm, picking up bales with a wooden slide. The tractor pulling the slide was a 1936 John Deere A that belonged to our neighbor immediately to the south. I was thrilled to help the local farmers who were heaping the slide full of square bales.

It had been decided that I would be better suited for operating the tractor than wrestling with the dense alfalfa bales. What’s difficult for me to understand, even today, is that everyone in the field knew I was a novice in the tractor seat. My experience until then had been confined to my family’s Farmall H and a neighbor’s 9N Ford.

It also was no secret that my father disliked John Deere tractors. He preferred the 4-cylinder Farmall engine to the 2-cylinder John Deere. He said the foot clutch and the extra cylinders made for a smoother and less abrupt start, especially when straining under a heavy load.

My personal issue with the John Deere I was about to mount was its volume: This was the machine that would pierce my upstairs bedroom window with loud popping from the exhaust on early mornings during spring planting and fall harvest, when its full torque was devoted to pulling various tillage tools. The harder a John Deere pulls, the more it can “bark.” This often interrupted my effort to sleep in, since this particular neighbor was known to be an early bird in the field.

But Albert, the neighbor who owned the John Deere A, was a close friend of my family and our neighbors. He was a widower in his late 60s and seemed eager to welcome drop-in guests, even at mealtime. My parents often discovered that, yet again, I had wandered to Albert’s and shared supper with him. Although to an 11-year-old boy he seemed like an old man, he still proved to be agile and strong.

Releasing the clutch – with an assist from Albert

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