I have been a very good boy this year. Santa brought me this…
Behold! We have attained the technological prowess of the 1940s!
It’s a two bottom Ferguson plow from the mid to late 1940’s. I’ll bet the Reindeer really had to bust ass to haul that baby !
Out of curiosity, and since it seems likely you’d know, how much has changed since that 1940’s tech? Is a brand spanking new plow likely to be all that different?
Since you asked…
Tractors are a whole lot more powerful now so they all pull much bigger plows. In general one horse pulls one bottom…though I’m not a horse guy so I can’t be sure. This is a two bottom. It takes just about all a the grunt a 1940’s tractor can handle and was probably hot shit for replacing a mule team. A middlin’ modern tractor nowadays has vastly more power. I’d guess one will probably pull eight bottoms with power to spare for air conditioning and a stereo. Big tractors pull much more than that.
Also my plow is suspended on the three point hitch. Modern plows are so much bigger that they can’t just hang there like a blob of steel. They appear to generally ride on wheels to be pulled down the road and then hydraulically lower to till. I expect that would be a lot handier.
Lastly I’ll be plowing with one tire in the already plowed area and one in the unplowed…that’s because the plow is about the width of the tractor. (As opposed to newer ones which plow much wider.) Thus I’ll be spending hours tilting off cant.
On the other hand it’s still totally reasonable. Soil won’t care if it’s tilled with a 2 bottom pulled by an antique or a ten bottom pulled by a tracked monster. Nor will the plants care. Also I tend to think the metal of the old plows is simply far more massive and tough.
So a modern plow would be several times bigger, probably easier to steer (not on a cant), likely more prone to broken components, and they require a whole lot more horsepower.
At least that’s my guess. I’ll know a lot more by next summer.
Doncha just love this new technology?
What is that tractor? Looks like the ass end of my old 600.
It’s a Ford 2n. Made the same year as the D-day invasion.
Heh! My Dad had a Ford tractor with a very similar plow setup as depicted in your post. Used it from about 1953 to 1959 on our 50-acre horse farm in rural Maryland. Didn’t know how good I had it back then.
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