Good grief 98J that is one impressive set of shots, my favorite is the black and white shots. My wife walked by when I had them up all she said was "HOLY SHIT" and shook her head.
Hey 98J do you know anything about Stone equipment down at the Dalles? Dad bought a 7U there in 1969 I'll get the pic up of the day it came home soon. Thanks again for the great pics.

Bruce

"Ray54" wrote:

Thanks for more great pictures 98j.Very similar things in this area with adding a second tractor in the nasty stuff.I,m not familiar with the IH harvesters,but growing up on JD 36B's,you can see tiller wheel to control header height has been replaced with a mechanical arm and a ram of some kind.Is that an air compressor on the engine with the large pulley?My dads 36 used air rams to control header height and to engage leveler.Also liked the photo with the mules pulling the harvester.
Ray

Hello Paso Robles. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what they were using. A lot
of hoses coming off the Cat back to the combine; that makes me think hydraulic. The tank on the underside of the operators platform sure looks
like air......and the cylinder on the platform lift looks awfully big .....makes me think air. There were a lot of air systems used around here right after the war
for plow lifts mainly. If it is an air set up, then I'll bet the compressor is on the combine somewhere. I'll check with one of the boys this week and
find out.

Stopped here to pick up another rider......

"Bruce wrote:

Good grief 98J that is one impressive set of shots, my favorite is the black and white shots. My wife walked by when I had them up all she said was "HOLY SHIT" and shook her head.
Hey 98J do you know anything about Stone equipment down at the Dalles? Dad bought a 7U there in 1969 I'll get the pic up of the day it came home soon. Thanks again for the great pics.

Bruce

Look real close at the decal on the nose of Marv's D4D......it reads Stone
Machinery. If you pulled up in front of the store today........it wouldn't look
much different than it did back in '69 when your Dad bought the 7U. Back
in the 50's it was Empire Machinery.....Cat on one side of the building and John Deere on the other. One stop shopping. They could sell you a 36B to cut your wheat, and a D6 to pull it with.

When Empire pulled out for greener pastures, Stone took over in the same
building. The joint dealership with Deere was gone, but Cat ruled supreme
in this area for tractors way into the 80's .

Halton Tractor took bought out Stone.......mid 70's if I remember right. Like
I said, the building doesn't look much different.......and still the same great
service from Cat.

98j: Yes, I remember some of the hills you took my wife and I on. Still scares to think about. I would think it would be scary to ride those hillside combines. Did the farmers in your area give up on the steep hills because of low yields or tired of farming them? Sure is a good set of pictures. I like to see how other farmers farm. Darrol SW Kansas.

"Darrol wrote:

98j: Yes, I remember some of the hills you took my wife and I on. Still scares to think about. I would think it would be scary to ride those hillside combines. Did the farmers in your area give up on the steep hills because of low yields or tired of farming them? Sure is a good set of pictures. I like to see how other farmers farm. Darrol SW Kansas.

Hey Darrol!! Yeah, there have been a few spots that have been seeded out to grass.......but still plenty of steep stuff. Markmans have hill back away from the road that is worse than the one shown above. Some spots the erosion has caught up with us........and the levelers available today have lead to the abandonment of some others (27% v 48%......do the math)

But, by & large here in Wasco Co. ........the hills are where the wheat is:



This one always gets my attention.......starts with a serious down hill pitch,
then a right turn & the leveler hits max:





Real good dirt on this patch.....hits 70 or so almost every time.

The switch to no till has got the erosion stopped......so I see continued
success farming the steep stuff. Seeding the slope seen above ( being cut
by the 1670). The operator has to go around this backwards ( to our usual
counterclockwise travel) because even this 500 HP Quad won't make the
pull & turn:





Sometimes, just getting there can be an adventure.........coming off of an
equipment trail getting ready to cross US 197 just north of Dufur, Oregon:







.....and right back to work......check out the seeded ridge in the background,
Darrol.....I can arrange for you to get a ride (in a combine) on that baby
sometime.......

Hello all, speaking of No-Till drills, here's the latest on we put together. They are Cross Slot openers from New Zealand and we built a custom frame to hang them on, we built the air equipment too. It's 25 feet wide the customer plans on pulling it with a 500 horse Quad trac.

And here's our in house opener alot simpler and better in the rocks in my opinion:D

Managed to borrow a camera card for part of today and grabbed a couple shots. Got done seeding spring wheat on the lower ground today. Still too wet on the rest of the land we farm except for some rented CRP ground that we will put into production this spring. I got the D6B out of the shed this afternoon and started disking some of that and got a little done before quitting time; farming will come to a halt with a 80% chance of snow tomorrow

After seeding a quick pass with the harrow to level out the rough spots left from turning the cat and drill around on the corners and filling with seed and fert etc. Plan to no-till winter legumes on this ground in the fall so it needs to be smooth, it will also be rolled after the rocks are picked.

54 acres in the field where the tractor sits, another 133 across the draw.

Just making the first round disking, had one pass last fall which didnt do much, will make 2-3 passes this spring and hopefully get it in shape to plant RR canola to clean the field up.

This old cat is now 50 years old and still does its share of work. In 1980 a turbo was added and horsepower increased to 145.

Great Tread Guys
98J some impressive shots of the D4 teamed up with the IH 51, really enjoyded the back and white shots and the pictures of the D4 - old D7 shots, some steep stuff, tends to keep you focused.
NIF, nice looking D6B, doesn't look like you have an AC unit on it??
Thanks Again for the great picutres, the younger generation doesn't have an appreciation of what their parents and grand parents went through to make a living farming in the steep hills of the northwest.

Hi 98J

Ole' Marv had some real biggins to be dragging an IH 51 around the peaks with a D4 of any size, old or new. There was a bunch of IH 51"s sold in this area,(Paso Robles) along with the JD 36B. The biggest difference that most saw between the two, besides the manufacturer, was a IH 51 was handled nicely with an RD6 or larger while the JD 36B required a 3T D7 of a D6C at a minimum. Naturally some had less steep land and could do with less but on par the D6 was a minimum for the IH 51.

There were several Harris and Case pull machines in the area and I seem to remember that they wanted a 4R or 9U D6 for the Harris while there was a neighbor who used an RD6 on the Case machine to good success.

Really appreciate the photos that you are posting. Do you have any of a Harris 88 or 98 at work??

Thanks again for your effort.

Casey