This talk of IH and crawlers

Read the OT IH parts request thread yesterday and realized that it was perfect conditions after the rain a while back to hook the yellow D4 to a red IH implement.

Ahhh, I am envious. I put on my dark glasses last week and used my Oliver OC-3 to skim some weeds next to my "Charlie Brown" veggie patch. I didn't beat the rain to move my little Goble drag disk over to make a few passes. It might be too early to sow some of my bulk flower seeds. My diabolical plan is till it and scatter the seeds. Let nature do the rest.

Stop it some more.! Let's see some more photos of your combo please. I really like that drag. I can envision it being good for placing an occasional rock or stray tree roots on it, while tidying up an orchard. Does anyone in your area use a burner sled? In Butte County, almond farmers would have a crew pickup any stray limbs, trash, etc., and toss on their steel sled, which was usually 10-12' wide and 20' long. Burn the trash and actually killing weeds on the orchard floor at the same time. On occasion, the crew would cook their lunch on the hot coals!

Give your viewers the story of your setup please. I like it! JM

JM -- memories of days gone past! Smudge pots, return stack heaters (yes, they did keep the shop warm too), Burner Sleds, Floats, rotating spike tooth harrows, "drags" some of wood, some even faced with angle iron. Dad built a drag from heavy sheet piling that interlocked, it would flex as it rode over the dirt, a single sheet in front of a roller did a good job of smoothing the ground before harvest too. Your memories of our early farming practices, experiences long forgotten by many. Remember riding the "Vee Ditchers", that was always fun! - cts

When I speak of a Vee Ditcher, it rode on a long sled like arm that the cutting blade was attached too. Ours had a rolling colter on the front and the back had a wide "wing" that helped keep it straight against the forces of the blade. One rode the "Vee" to add weight to the blade and keep it engaged to ground. From the days of horse drawn equipment. I searched the internet briefly but found no pictures - 😪

Try this for the "vee ditcher" very similar to the one we had and used many times for ditches and drains in the orchard, flood irrigation days. Pulled it with the Ford 8N and later with the Ford NAA - cts --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpVKC1Zta4I

The disc is a 24B if I recall correctly. We had 2 in the junk pile one was taken apart when I was a kid, I recall going down to our local Helms tractor and parts were NLA and IH was no longer a company about that time. I actually threw this one in the dumpster and my brother pulled it out… kind of strange as it was usually the other way around. I needed a disc to disc my in-laws 1/2 acre of horse corral so I put this thing back together. Had to make a jig to plasma cut 3 1/2” hex or somewhere about that sized hex. The gangs had so much end play and I couldn’t get it apart I machined the ends and put some Marvin landplane wheel bearings with seals in there.

Originally the disc was primarily used when closing up vee ditches pulled behind a D6 9U to D5B or modes in between to dry things out. Occasionally used behind a wheel tractor in the spring for all of the odd shaped parcels for weed control.

The drag was always along the row of equipment in my lifetime it’s actually called a soil surgeon. I guess my grandfather like using it in the 50’s, my dad never had anything nice to say about it whenever I asked. Something else that was moments from scrap after my grandfather passed that I brought over to smooth things up for my daughter. Apparently they pulled it behind the high crop 420 JD or Farmall 300V when cultivating tomatoes to firm up the beds. When mechanical harvesting and direct seeding become popular they had a Marvin or Johnson pre plant and lay by power mulcher/ “Marvin Row Master” / Johnson Incorporator that would till and bed shape in one pass. About that time they probably got some small Schmiser ring rollers that I always recall pulling behind the 3020 High Crop. Those two mechanical purchases made this obsolete probably late 60’s.

There was another set of those soil surgeon that had a piano hinge in the middle for shaping Alfalfa borders, but I don’t know what happened to it as it’s been at least 40 years since I recall it being on the ranch. I had a stack of concrete pavers and some cast tractor weights for this for weight but not sure where my mid 80 year old FIL did with them.

We had a wagon for burning in the orchard, slotted angle iron floor, steel plate sides, steel wheels front and back. I only saw it being used for burning other stuff, cut up by tweakers about 2009.

we just had suitcase weights on our atlas vee ditcher, but you could hitch a ride on the back.

Wow! That "Soil Surgeon" is something I have never seen before. I just assumed the bottom was smooth. I have seen some orchardists make a smooth bottom drag like that, with lots of room to load up with rocks,dirt clods, stumps whatever happened to be kicked up along the way. Made things really nice and tidy. You mentioned uneven ground in nuts; we used to turn away many growers asking us to machine harvest their walnuts. Too rough and crop loss would be too great. Same guys only used a heavy drag in front of a large diameter smooth roller. That was far better than what we had when we were super dirt poor here. My brothers would make drags out of used telephone poles. Very sad, but they did what they could with what little was available.

I had an Atlas Vee ditcher almost identical to yours. It was too lightweight. It sat in our boneyard for decades. Finally one day I took an empty tomato paste drum, tack welded it to the crossbar in back; tossed hundreds of pounds of used cable/strap winches from trailer projects. What a difference that made. No sooner than I did that, some guy came along and offered me $1500.00 SOLD!

The atlas ditcher picture is from the Nishimura estate auction. I think my brother got $3000 or $3500 for his, kinda obsolete for that kind of ditch now. The Atlas frame is only 1/4 wall 4x6 and he did break it in half about 10 years ago. That ditcher was highly sought after, granted not as heavy as Y&J, smith or Tiura. However as I found out on my first ditch as a teenager is you have to take multiple passes and go progressively down before you make a full ditch using the tracks to pack down the sides as you go otherwise in our chunky soil you get a leak and or blowout.

Regarding orchard prep with full tillage and no drip

or sprinklers. After running the agri-plane in the orchard both directions behind the D47U or D4D… both top seat mind you. The next operation in the sequence was a wheel tractor with a 36” diameter flat roller filled with water. We had “special” worn out tires with zero tread otherwise you would leave holes for the walnuts to get trapped in. Today it’s just run the flail mower through there and get everything fine enough to blow out of the harvester. On the roller we had a 16” diameter 1/2” wall pipe that the steel yard cut in 1/2 lengthwise that ran right before the roller it was just filled with dirt.

30 years ago my brother and I had ideas of a walnut business, I recall the price was $0.75 inshell, now it’s probably half of that. We purchased this 10’ x16” x 1/2” wall drop from the local supplier that cut them with a shape maker. Now I have to figure out what to do with it, still needs the end plates and tow hooks.

Thanks for the history of check irrigating. And you even answered my questions about the wheel disc with the Dyer tube style axles. So that had to be early to mid 50's then.

We had several try the mechanical harvesting of walnuts here. Only one did it for an extended time. With the sidehills, even what we call level is far from it. They never got away from a bit of a mound at the tree base. If they would have evened the dirt more it could of gotten more nuts. But the organic became a big dollar thing here, so chemical weed control was out. Mowing without irrigation just does not keep enough water in the ground for the best crop.

A pipe drag or Schmeiser ring roller was as good as it got. With extra hulling charges and lost nuts hand picking was still in the ball park price wise. Treating the "cheap" help with respect and paying a nickel a sack more than the penny pinchers could make you money. The sacks all had a full 3 buckets of nuts and no rock added to fill a sack quicker.

The last 4 years and the boom in the wine business 10 years ago have the walnut acreage down to almost nothing. But of course the wine business has gone bust too.

Interesting to hear you speak of an OC3. I just picked up an HG at Bright's auction. I had one when I was a kid. My ex wife made me sell it to buy my first D2. I always regretted selling it.

I got in a bidding war over an HG that appeared to be in pristine condition. I bid him up to $3500 and let him "win" it. It turns out the guy was my neighbor.

There were quite a few 3 cyl Cats in the sale. I am afraid some may be going for scrap. I see Colton made some nice saves.

Tom Armstrong

cts what you describe as a vee ditcher would possibly also be called a delver. drawn behind the tractor to cut irrigation ditches and to keep them formed up. the style ive heard of had two adjustable blades so you could set depth/width of cut the soil would roll up the blade and be deposited on the banks of the ditch as you drove along. the uncle worked in the queensland cotton industry. a number of cotton growers would also grow a grain crop in between cotton season.