Antique tractors, fans keep each other busy

Annual plow day gives owners chance to share memories

Terrell Williams
For the Capital Press

Nov. 1 was a perfect fall day for playing around with old-fashioned farm machinery.

At a 40-acre harvested potato field near Eden, a dozen members of the Magic Valley Antique Tractor Pullers Inc. gathered for their annual autumn Plow Day as rain hung in the clouds.

John Glick had his John Deere model B working with Oliver 18- and 21-inch plows. Chuck Steinmetz drove his 1953 42-horsepower 88 Oliver, as well as his 1955 52-hp Super 88. And David Lohr used his 1952 Massey Harris 44 with a Massey Ferguson two-bottom hang-on plow on hydraulic lift.

Chuck Steinmetz, of Eden, works his restored Oliver 88 diesel tractor at the annual Plow Day on Nov. 1.

Rex Shaw gives his antique tractor a workout as he helps plow in a 40-acre harvested potato field.

"As kids growing up, we used all this old stuff," said Lohr, a retired farmer. "The old tractors are simple to work on. Modern tractors, it takes a genius to work on them, or at least they have to have schooling."

"I've been farming since I was big enough to follow my dad, and I'm 60 now," club president Delbert Harmon said. He was in coveralls driving his 1958 diesel Case 800, using every bit of its 55-horsepower to pull a three-bottom tumble plow. This plow, he said, was modified from a two-bottom plow by Eden farmer Marvin Wellhousen, who used it for decades in the early days.

"It's kind of a novelty," Harmon said. "It took him one winter's work. It's a one-of-a-kind deal."

Harmon said these old plows and other antique farm equipment are getting more rare by the day. Every time metal prices go up, more old barn yards get cleaned out.

"Scrap iron was $250 a ton, and it doesn't take many old plows to make a ton," Harmon said. "That's why a lot of old equipment is hard to find. And it's been going on for years."

Rex Shaw said rubber tires work much better than the steel wheels on his 1928 McCormick Deering, but he keeps the steel ones because they are original and are rare. Farmers used to cut off the outer steel treads and replace them with rubber, he said. Then, during World War II, there was no rubber, so those wheels were converted back to steel.

Retired farmer John Glick of Gooding has been a MVATP member for about five years.

"This is just a hobby now," he said after plowing a few rows. "I fix and restore old tractors and stuff."

Glick said he and other club members enjoy helping each other, sharing expertise in different makes of equipment and trading or making needed parts.

"You learn a lot from each other," he said.

In a discussion of tractor seats, Glick said the cushioned models first appeared in 1949. Before that, he said, the old metal seats had better springs, but they were ice-cold. For warmth at the end of winter and in late fall, he said, farmers would fill gunny sacks with straw and tie them to the metal seats with baling twine.

Mike Edlund of Richfield, who drives four antique tractors, was on hand to offer jump-starts and occasional advice. "Don't plow too deep," he said. "That way, you don't have to pick rock."

When one driver was fixing a low hydraulic problem, Edlund said jokingly to another, "You drive a John Deere. Would you drive it over there and leak on that a little bit?"

Harmon said this 75-member tractor association is a fun and active group that is proud to be preserving a piece of history.

"It's remarkable how much agriculture has changed in the last century," he said. "We want to preserve these (tractors) for posterity's sake, so future generations can see how they operated. If you don't preserve them, then they're gone. Our kids and grandkids wouldn't have any idea how they operated if we didn't keep them going."