New Tractors

After deciding to start our farming business in 2020, we needed to start getting equipment. One of the first things we did was go look at brand new green and orange tractors. Either one of those would have been really nice, but our new farm just didn’t have the budget. So we watched Kijiji. This is the first tractor we decided we needed. It’s a 1961 Farmall 140, and we just happened to find it in Kensington, 10 miles from where we live.

If you look at it from the front, you will see that the cab is offset to one side. This is so the driver can look directly down over cultivating (weeding) equipment mounted under the middle of the tractor, and make sure the cultivators are on track to take out the weeds but not hurt the plants. These little tractors were used extensively down east during the tobacco heyday, handling everything from planting, to cultivating to harvesting.

So far it runs great. We’ve learned it’s very speedy in third gear, so that will be for highway (dirt road) cruising only. It’s a little stubborn starting in cold weather, but that’s ok, we shouldn’t have to use it other than nice summer farming days. Next step now is to look for some compatible equipment we can use to plant and cultivate our little field, pretty much like they were doing 50 years ago.