Farmalls for feeding

My grandfather, Finis Ewing Walters, bought a 1946 John Deere LA brand new with cultivator system and seed planter in Tyler, Texas. He paid $650 for the tractor, and I believe he said $300 more for the equipment. After returning from service in the trenches of France in WWI, he married my grandmother and bought the farm on which she had been born. The family bought this farm in 1872, and I still live there, in the house he built from timber from the farm.  He trucked, farmed and raised cattle.

 In 1972, he gave the tractor to me, I still have that 1946 John Deere LA tractor, although my stepfather’s rebuilding of it ended with his passing. I also have a 1952 John Deere Model 40 which I used to commercially grow roses and cattle for decades. I used a couple 1960’s IH Farmall 140 tractors to grow tons of veggies for local soup kitchens and food banks in the early 2000’s. We were featued in New York Times article about our East Texas Food Bank garden, where we grew over 230,000 pounds of veggies in 5 years on four acres. I am the second owner of a 1948 John Deere M, a nifty 1948 John Deere B,  1960’s International Harvester Cub with cultivating equipment, and a 1962 Ford Workmaster Model 661 with three hundred actual hours for mowing. 

As you might have noticed, I didn’t buy tractors for showing. I bought them to use for their intended purposes. Thus they are dusty, and sun faded and have scratches and dents. 

Delivering veggies summer of 2023 to the food bank in my red 1971 GMC pickup.

But the 70+ HP Kubota with power steering and a nifty front end loader has supplanted most tractors, except using the Ford for mowing the orchard and the 140 Farmalls for vegetable production for food banks.

A few years ago, I shipped a ton of tractors, cultivating equipment, and even some horse drawn cultivation equipment to an orphanage I was working with in Sudan.

You can look up articles I have written over the years, in Mother Earth News about buying and using (older) tractors for land preparation and cultivation. And Texas Gardener for an article on propagating and growing roses.

 But, boy, in the last half century, I have had a hoot. And have been blessed to feed thousands of people.

Sam Griffith
Texas

If you would like to send in a story with photo(s) about an experience with your tractor, interesting facts about its history, or a restoration project,  please go to Tractor Story Submissions. If your story is picked to appear on the blog you will receive a FREE Steiner hat. Some stories will also go on to be published in our quarterly magazine. We look forward to hearing your story!