Thinking back over the years to the time when we were small and comparing the way the farm was operated then with the way it is done now and seeing all the changes that have taken place. There have been more changes in just one lifetime than there were in thousands of years previously. The source of power on the farm up until I finished high School was all done with horses. Early settlers did use some oxen when they were clearing the land. Occasionally one could find an old ox yoke hanging in a barn but I never saw an ox team used other than for a novelty or show.
My use of horses was for a few years prior to World War Two. My experience was mostly using the horses for mowing hay and pulling hay wagons and hauling bundles of grain to the threshing machine. Although I tried plowing with a team of horses and a walking plow it turned into a disaster and I do not remember ever plowing a complete field. My first year out of high school my dad bought the first farm tractor to be used entirely for tilling the soil. After that came a steady stream of different tractors as the technology developed and they became available. It might be interesting if I would give a little insight into them and how they worked as the new ideas were installed over the years. But first my story should back up a bit to the first tractor that my dad bought back when I was about six or seven years old.
My dad William Peterson ran a threshing machine for separating grain from the straw from the time he was in his early twenties. The separators were powered with steam engines and required a crew of nearly five men to operate. The head engineer a fireman {with either wood or coal}. another man to cut strings and feed the bundles into the machine and my dad who operated the separator. Some times another man came along to relieve the others from the hot dusty jobs, and last but not least a "water boy" whose job was to haul big tanks of water to keep the steam engine supplied so that it could make steam. There always was the possibility of causing a fire from the sparks of the fire box. A long drive belt was used to keep the steam engine as far from the threshing machine as possible, and if possible down wind from the loose straw. You can see this method of power had many shortcomings. So when in the middle twenties gasoline powered tractors made there appearance my dad and Bill Mienel his partner invested in an Allis Chalmers tractor. It was bought directly from the manufacturing company in Milwaukee and shipped to Nunica on a flat car. The railroad wanted it unloaded immediately but for some reason it would not start and a mechanic had to be summoned from the factory to replace a faulty part. All the kids around Nunica including myself were busy watching the unloading. It was the high light of a dull summer in 1925.
The steam engine was last used in the summer of 1923. I can still visualize the machine coming down the road that last year at about two miles per hour. I ran down to meet it and the engineer hoisted me up on the drivers platform. It was pretty big stuff for me until I put my hand on the fire box and burned a big blister on it. I was four years old at the time, At least I can say that I experienced first hand the going of the steam era. The next year 1924 a neighbor who had a 15-30 McCormick Deering tractor powered the separator.
This tractor was a big heavy brute weighing in at over four tons. It had two forward speeds of one and a half and two and a half miles per hour, and operated with a hand clutch. The steel wheels had wrap around steel bars for lugs so as not to tear up the roads. The front wheels steel angle irons bent around the middle of the rim sticking out about three inches when new. When pulling a big load they assisted the tractor to turn corners. Gravel roads wore them down to less than half over the years. It is easy to see that this tractor was not one that could be used in the field but was strictly a source of power for belt work, One time when pushing the separator into a barn with a bunt pole my dad was steering the threshing machine with the tongue the front wheel of the tractor caught his foot passing over his instep. Luckily the flange did not pass over as it would have cut his foot off. . He spent a couple of weeks on crutches though. In those days you seldom ever went to a doctor to see if there were any broken bones. If the bones were not protruding from the skin you just toughed it out.
The Allis Chalmers 20-35 powered the separator for the next twenty years until the second World War when {Baldy} Bill Mienel took a job in a defense plant. It sat idle for one year and in 1946 when I returned from the service I inherited the tractor operators job with my dad for its last year. In 1947 my dad and I had bought a smaller threshing machine that could be operated with a much smaller farm tractor. We left the old tractor sitting in the shed for a few years but we needed the space so it was pulled outside and stood for a couple more years before it was sold for junk. The junk dealer brought in a crane that lifted it up to about four feet off the ground and allowed it to drop breaking it in the middle so that the smaller pieces could be handled. A very inglorious end for a faithful machine. I still feel sad about it. If it was here today it would be worth many times its original purchase price.
The next farm tractor to appear on the Peterson homestead was also an Allis Chalmers model W.C. It was of the tricycle variety and had rubber tires in front but the rear drive wheels were steel with five inch spade lugs. At that time farmers couldn't believe that a rubber tire would give traction enough to pull anything and also believed the tires would kill the grass where ever they went. The WC was called a two plow tractor, There was no muffler ,just a straight pipe extending about eight inches above the hood so the driver received both the full blast of the sound as well as the carbon monoxide fumes. {This may be the reason that I am tone deaf and have a constant ringing in my ears.} The brakes were hand operated with long levers. The seat stuck out behind the rear axle and had very little spring to it so that every bump the tractor went over was intensified by the time it reached the driver. Basically it was a fine operating machine of it's time and you could accomplish a lot of work with it. My dad traded a team of horses and some boot money for it or for a total of about seven hundred dollars. It operated off a magneto and had to be cranked by hand but it was very easy starting. The only mechanical problem that we had with it during the six years we used it was that the governor would fly to pieces . It was a hard job to put in a new one as the timing gear ran off the same gear. I learned how to time an engine after about three experiences . Later on we equipped it with rubber on the rear so that our roads would not be churned up by the lugs. Some attachments were also added. A two row cultivator and an attached mower bar. We for the most part were very happy with this tractor but it went on the auction block when I was drafted into the Army.
After deciding to go into farming on returning home from the Army I found that we had no tractor or tillage tools to work with and the farm machinery companies had not had time to switch back to civilian operation. We bought a couple of horses but they were not matched and did not pull together very well . My efforts to plow with them was a disaster as neither I or the horses had any idea of what we were supposed to be doing. We finally used Kenneths tractor to do the plowing. Kenneth's first tractor was an International F-12. It was slow and I got the crop in late and an early frost came before the corn ripened. A labor day frost that year. During the winter we had our name on the list of customers to buy a tractor at all the various implement stores. Finally I saw an ad in the Michigan farmer magazine of a Massey Harris tractor for sale up near Big Rapids. I went up and bought it. It was a 101 Junior Massey Harris. I knew little about them and found that this one had been abused and in need of an over haul. Shortly after buying the Massey a Allis Chalmers W.C. came up for sale at auction which we bought giving us two tractors for the summer of 1947. The Allis was practically new but did not have hydraulics although it was equipped with a starter and lights. The story of both of these tractors should be told. I will go down through the 101 Massey first.
We found the 101 Jr. to be extremely under powered and in need of an overhaul. It served as a second tractor for the first summer The handling and driving was very good. So that next winter saw the engine coming out of it and going to Muskegon to Continental Motors for a factory overhaul. They found that the block was cracked and needed replacing so I suggested they put the larger displacement engine in to give more power. A paint job was added and we had a very good utility tractor. A manure loader was welded together and a oil pump was added. Giving us a very useful machine that I was very satisfied with . We used it for the next four years, But one morning a dealer came in before breakfast to say he had received a new Massey Harris 44 tractor that he had not expected and that he had a buyer for a 101 Jr. tractor and he wanted to deal now . It was a very good price that was offered so a deal was completed. The new tractor was a great improvement having a hydraulic system and the power to pull three plows easily. One last note on the 101 Jr. Years later I was browsing around a tractor junk yard in Wayland Michigan and saw a 101 Jr setting there that was being stripped for parts. A closer examination revealed that it was my old 101 because some of my welding was still visible on it.
Back to the Allis Chalmers W.C. which we purchased at auction in the spring of 1947. Although it had electric start and ignition it did not have a Hydraulic system. It was much more powerful than the first Allis that we had before the War. We found that it could handle the small threshing machine that my dad had bought that year and we done a lot of custom threshing around the neighbor hood. It was still a hard riding but peppy machine. We used it for the next ten or eleven years. My dad thought it was a wonderful machine so when I traded it off for a more modern tractor of a Massey Ferguson 65 to give him something more easy to ride and to have to cultivate with. He at first did not appreciate the switch but it wasn't too long before he came to appreciate the more modern features. The Allis was traded in on it and the dealer sold it to a outfit that adapted it to a loader highlow. by reversing the controls to drive it back wards and adding an oil pump. I saw it for several years at a produce place up near Bailey . It was used to load big crates of vegetables and fruits.
The Massey Harris 44 was a beautiful tractor of its time, the state of the art, considered by many to be the best tractor in the industry. It was rugged and powerful and fast. Its engine was easy to work on but it had one deficiency. Although the seat was spring loaded hydraulic it was a little rough riding. We didn't notice it to much as all tractors of the time were the same way. After a couple of years I had decided to go deer hunting in the upper Michigan. The day before I left I had drained the water in the radiator down and added six quarts of antifreeze but only drove it into the garage before leaving for up north, thinking that it would be used daily to haul manure. The temperature went to below zero while we were gone. Upon returning I found that they had used the other tractor . It wasn't even necessary to look I knew that the block would be cracked beyond repair. A new block was ordered and installed . The company had came out with a larger block called a 444 so we installed the newer version giving us still more power . I adapted the manure loader over to fit it . A three bottom attached plow was added. This worked very well and performed up to our best expectations. It was our belt tractor being used on the threshing machine. For the next twenty years it performed faithful for us. but by 1973 the radiator had became a little week and new technology indicated it was time to upgrade to a more modern tractor so I traded the Massey 44 for a Massey Feguson 175 diesel. One last bit about the 44. One time using the loader to move some dirt on a side hill I had the bucket too high and the tractor over balanced . It rolled down hill ending up with the wheels straight up. I had abandoned the seat and running down hill as fast as I could travel thinking that it might continue to roll. A chain from another tractor rolled it back on its wheels. With the replacement of oil in both the crankcase and the Hydraulic system it was soon back to work. The steering wheel was bent up and the muffler smashed, both had to be replaced,
The Massy Freguson 65 tractor was a low profile compact tractor of around fifty horsepower. The price tag on it came to more than four thousand dollars. To me it was an unheard of price. This was an easy riding tractor just what my dad needed as he was getting up in years and he still wanted to do some operations on the farm. It was also equipped with what was called multi-power, a new improvement allowing the tractor to be switched from a higher or lower speed by just a flick of a switch. I bought a mounted self contained materials loader for it that was very handy having down pressure as well as up. A belt pulley and buzz saw attachment were added making it a all year utility tractor. After the tornado we tried it on the first chopper we had trying to chop for the silo. It was a little short of horsepower for that job even though we did use it for a couple of years. Philip was in his early teens at the time and got his initiation driving it on both the chopper and baler. In order to get more horse power and to switch over to diesel fuel the 65 was traded in for a Massey Freguson 180 A tractor of sixty plus horse power.
Figured in the deal for the 180 was a semi-mounted four bottom plow. The hydraulics on the 180 was specifically designed for this plow making it one of the best combinations that I ever owned. The added horsepower made the chopping much easier as well. This tractor performed very well for several years, however as it become older and the hydraulic system became worn problems began to surface and a bigger chopper was bought making the sixty horse power a bit lacking. To solve this problem a 1105 Massy tractor came on the place.
Its 95 H. P. gave us more than needed horsepower. The 1105 had twenty inch tires but I did not have them filled with solution as I thought that the tractor was big and heavy enough to handle all the jobs around our farm so why carry a lot of unnecessary weight? That was a mistake because we were always short of traction for as long as we owned it.
Two other tractors came on the scene over the years. One was a Massey Freguson fifty tractor with a high profile to be used as a utility tractor and for cultivating. It was purchased in 1963 , it delivered approximately 35 hp. It was easy to drive and very handy. It was considered my dads tractor being the last one that he drove . He continued to do most of the cultivating with this tractor until he was in his middle eighties. I took it away from him at that time as I was fearful that something might happen while he was driving and I did not want that to be on my conscience. He was very upset with this decision and complained bitterly about it. I still feel that under the circumstances it was the right way to go. In 1965 when we moved into the loose housing setup for the diary cows this tractor became the one to remove the manure from the barn. The constant exposure to the manure was very hard on it and soon rust started to take over.. It was run for ten to fifteen minutes every day year around. It always started and was ready to go no matter how cold the weather.
The other tractor coming on the scene was a 175 diesel . It was bought to take the place of the Massey 44. The horsepower was about the same as the 180 but this tractor came as a low profile compact version. The hydraulics were similar also . Its main use was on the blower and for tillage. Etta would often drive fitting the fields after I had plowed them. We had it around for many years however a bad air filter allowed dirt into the engine shortening the life of it making an over haul necessary. Instead Philip traded it in on the green tractor that he has now.
By 1978 I was approaching sixty years of age. The winters were getting colder for me and the summers hotter so I thought it time to get a tractor with a cab. The 1105 began having injector pump problems so instead of repairing the pump I traded it for the 2675. A tractor with cab and air conditioning. This was a new version put out by the company with a lot of fan fare about its sophistication. At first it lived up to its publicity but it soon showed several weaknesses. We found that the repair to keep it in the field made the cost to operate skyrocket on a per hour basis. Many little things have gone wrong as well . The front axle was to light and both sides broke. The transmission has had three complete overhauls over the years. It is still on the place doing a reduced amount of work as Philip has started to plant no-till so that the hard work of plowing and tillage for the most part has been eliminated. This will be the nineteenth summer for the 2675 to operate here. The engine has never had anything done to it but two injector pumps have been installed. It is time to make trade bait out of it but the price now asked for a tractor of similar horsepower would take a mortgage of the whole farm to buy.
The Massey 50 that was purchased in 1963 is still here but after using it in the barn for more than twenty years to scrape manure out, it had become very rusty and the hydraulics went out of it so that now we only use it to pull a few wagons around. Some interest has been shown by a relative who would like to restore it. Maybe I should let him go after it. Its now twenty four years old and very tired so it isn't worth very much.
This pretty much concludes a run down on the various tractors that have been a part of my life in the last sixty years. I should comment a little on the Duetz tractor that Philip traded both the 175 and the 180 for. It was a used tractor of the all wheel drive type, and has a bit under 60 hp. It is really too small for what is being asked of it. The mounted loader works very smoothly and is used daily in doing chores of feeding cows and steers, and it is very economical to operate.