Vintage farm equipment, part 2. Photo Gallery
62My road home often takes me by this large lot full of antique farmers' equipment. There are not signs, no information, and no protection from the weather for the metal pieces. They stand a few feet from the road, unidentified. These treasures of the past are rusted and broken. Most of them are missing parts and paint. Not one of them could be used in a field today. I often wonder who and why placed these vintage tools by the road. Plows, tillers, tractors and grinders stand silently in knee-high grass and yellow flowers. Oddly shaped parts: springs, wheels, diggers, metal seats and handles are scattered around the larger equipment. Almost as ruins of an ancient civilization, this antique farm equipment tells a story of different time.
Please enjoy these original pictures.
I also invite you to visit Antique Farm Equipment Photo Gallery, PART 1
Bit of history
Antique farming equipment is a great reminder how far agricultural tools have advanced. Just a couple of hundred years ago, most of the work was done by hand. Farming was literaly a back-breaking labor, with long hours and few rewards.
In the 1840s, the need for better equipment was finally recognized and several inventors went to work. Less than 100 years later, machines that could do many of farmer's labor-intensive jobs became avaliable. Machines picked cotton, corn, sugar beets and dug potatoes. Cultivators could dig shallow or deep, depending on the need of the crop. Planters and croppers could cover twenty times more land than a farmer on foot could have in the same amount of time.
All-purpose tractor was introduced in the 1930s and have created so many more opportunities for farmers in America.
Portraits of old workers
Tools for a small yard farmer
 | Amazon Price: $12.89 List Price: $17.99 |
 | Amazon Price: $9.82 List Price: $16.99 |
 | Amazon Price: $42.95 List Price: $59.99 |
Farmer's almanac
 | Amazon Price: $3.42 List Price: $6.95 |
 | Amazon Price: $0.99 |
 | Amazon Price: $3.08 List Price: $6.95 |
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I am glad you enjoyed the photographs! My grandparents had a small family farm too, but they mostly used hand tools. Kids and grandkids were required to help. If it was not for the food from my grandparents' lot, our winter months would have been much more difficult.
Both of my husband's grandparents farmed and still rent out farm land in Kansas. The new equipment farmers have does not look anything like these antique pieces.
I loved these photographs....takes me back to my grandparent's area..they weren't farmers, but most of the land around them was. Delightful
krosch Level 3 Commenter 6 months ago
A lot of those look like they came strait off what I remember seeing in my Grandparents Junk Yard on the back 40. While my generation might be the first one in 2 centuries not to have a farmer in it from my family. MY grandparents had farmed their land since the great depression moving from Northern Iowa/Northern Minnesota shortly after getting married. They settled in Northwestern Minnesota and farmed for a very long time.
Thanks for the great photographs and bringing back some wonderful memories.