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Even more unrealistic when workhorse tractors suitable for small acreage can be had for $2,000 to $3,000 price range and attachments for them are also inexpensive.
JD 4020 Diesels in good condition run $8-12,000 in our region, and 3020's are bringing $5-8,000. Either are quite suitable for serious farming on acreages up to a few hundred acres, and way more tractor than a 40 acre parcel would ever need. One certainly doesn't need to spend $30K + attachments ... I haven't got that much in all my tractors, baler, swather, and rakes.
My neighbor's asian 3 cylinder diesel tractor with a host of attachments ... loader, box blade/scraper, post hole digger, disc, sickle bar mower, and a couple of others I don't think he's even used yet ... cost $15,000 brand new with a warranty.
--" JD 4020 Diesels in good condition run $8-12,000 in our region "--
same here.
I recall , in my younger days, talking to a farmer complaining how expensive tractors had gotten.
He reached in his pocket and showed me a quarter and said---------------" After buying a new 4020 and a new 5 bottom plow, this is all that's left from $10,000"----
--" JD 4020 Diesels in good condition run $8-12,000 in our region "--
same here.
I recall , in my younger days, talking to a farmer complaining how expensive tractors had gotten.
He reached in his pocket and showed me a quarter and said---------------" After buying a new 4020 and a new 5 bottom plow, this is all that's left from $10,000"----
( it was the late 60's)
Exactly! These older mid-sized tractors are now selling for more than they did when they were new 50 years ago!
My dad has always been an International man. Also, he never sells any of his old equipment, so he now has almost 30 tractors. Over the years he has taken a lot of ribbing from a lot of people about that (including my brother and me), but deep down everyone knows what's really going on.
For instance, in early 1984 dad bought a pair of IH 1206's at a farm auction. Paid $3,000 each for them. In the past 25 years he has absolutely driven the heck out of both of them - putting on probably close to 8,000 hours each - and they're now worth about $8,000 each.
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Originally Posted by ChrisC
Well, I think we can all agree, more work or not, in a 'bad situation,' finding something for the horse to eat may be easier than finding refined crude from the middle east. You CAN plow a field with a horse without relying on diesel or gas; you can't with a tractor. The horses would sure beat going out and hand sowing/harvesting! Now, granted, gas and diesel is readily available right now, but having the knowhow to use a team of horses (which I don't have, BTW) could come in handy. Then again, so would knowing how to live without electricity, central AC, cars, grocery stores, cell phones, texting and all sorts of stuff many of us look at as necessities.
My diesel tractor runs on the sweet light crude that comes from the gas well in my back yard. The thin light stuff comes right off the top of the tank. It runs great. No refining needed.
About 50 years ago, 10 days on an upstate New York farm loading and unloading wet hay pretty much cured me of farming forever. I would guess that farmers swiched to motor power because they could get more done for less cost than using animals. I figure that still holds except for some specific uses such as very selective logging.
If fuel ever became really expensive and a farmer had some warning he could plant a fuel/food crop and run the Diesels on straight vegatable oil and use the squeezed pulp for animal food. I am thinking about soybeans or field corn as the crop.
PS: I kind of envy anyone with a gas/oil well in their back yard. I would use as much as I needed and sell the rest.
You nailed it, Sunsprit. If anybody's spending $70 a day operating a tractor on a 40-acre farm, they must be using it only a few times each year -- or just driving it around for fun.
We had a couple work horses on our farm when I was a tyke -- late 40s. Our neighbor kept his after he retired around 1950, and I got to use them in the field for packing newly planted corn. That was about the only use we had for them. Horses or mules eat every day of the year. I can't believe they'd save any real farmer a cent, let alone $70 per day.
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