Farming In The 1950s

This video was transferred from a 300ft reel of 8mm film. "Farming in the 1950s" is full of vintage farming equipment in action, lots of John Deere. This film also includes several high speed shots that show equipment operating in slow motion, as well as some bonus black and white footage at the end. Some portions may appear dark due to poor exposure.

[@frankwurth5375]

Love the old home movies. This is exactly the way we farmed in the 60s and 70s! I still have those old machines on the farm, and still use them when I can. The baler is the Deere 114 W or 116 W series. I have both versions and haven't used them since I can't get help to manhandle those bales. Thanks for posting.

[@scottrayhons2537]

Never saw that kind of baler before.

[@frankwurth5375]

They were a decent baler but had 2 obvious draw backs. With the side discharge they were clumsy as all get out. Took a lot of effort to go from narrow road mode to field mode, but you got used to it. The far bigger issue related to the wire, if the unit got too worn in the twister box, it could leave small bits of wire on the bale where if consumed by animals it could well cause the dreaded hardware disease. Those sharp bits could cause internal injury and death of the animal. Deere had a big recall shortly after they were introduced and it did improve it but that's a worry with all wire balers. Back when wire tie balers were everywhere, the veternarian's would put a large special magnet into the cow's belly to remove all bits of metal, Cows will swallow most anything it grazes and any bits of nails, wire from any source is a concern. The magnet with all it's accumulated hardware will pass through the animal and be deposited in the manure.@@scottrayhons2537​

[@davidkimmel4216]

Thank You Thank You. Memories are wonderful

[@annalorree]

Back during the Covid shutdown, I rebuilt a 1950 Ford 8N tractor. I also found and got an old Ferguson 2-14 plow for it. Today I plowed up my garden plot. The old technology is considered obsolete now, but how many 2023 tractors will still be running in 2096?

[@frankwurth5375]

There must be several short movies compiled on this video. As the progression of time of seasons and later vintage machines are shown. The 55 combine was a real early one as it has the hand powered long lever for the ground speed control, later versions had a hydraulic control with a short lever, I had both versions of them, they were very good machines for the time. Also notice the corn, the stalks are about 15 inches between them in the row, maybe 12000 plants per acre population? Today it's common to have 30000 ppa, but we use a good bit of fertilizer. Also what are they loading into the spreader? Almost looks like loose dirt? Not like any manure I've ever loaded! Also trying to figure out why the people at the farm demonstration are doing walking through the tall grass? A real interesting study.

[@glennspreeman1634]

Is this normal speed, I don't remember these machines going this clip. Great to see them strutting their stuff!.

[@the8mmrailyard-vd6jd]

On some portions of the film he ran the camera at a high speed so it would appear in slow motion when projected back. If you speed up the playback it will be closer to normal speed.

[@dwightl5863]

I agree that the playback speed was not the speed of equipment shown in most of the video. Looked like the John Deere plowing was doing it in road gear which didn't happen.

[@glennso47]

Interesting video!😁

[@clarencetrice4442]

when all of these equipment and cars trucks tractors and other equipment was brand new back then gas was cheap not like it is 2 day 😊😊 8 13 2O23

[@73SDR]

I wonder how much of this land is still farm land,

[@MrTGleaner]

Love these old farm films! Keep up the awesome work!!!

[@johnmcgoldrickjr1519]

This brought back my memories

[@BIBSTERSrepairshop]

This is awesome thanks for sharing this old footage

[@HanHan-fw6ki]

Fantastic - thx for sharing 👍🏼

[@derweibhai]

Crazy to see those tractors. They were old back then. I have both a 1936 A and B John Deere and they are ancient now. Still use them for field work. Just bought a Deere disk tiller like the one behind the D in this video. Pretty cool to see them working.

[@jimanderson7648]

what number is the tiller you bought? use to have two 16 foot # 1100 tillers heavy tillers

[@derweibhai]

Not sure. It says John Deere on it and it is about 8 ft wide with steel wheels and 9 disks, I think.

[@edmcelhone4501]

good old days

[@oransmith-o3g]

Lots of hard work, we use to .02 a bale to pick and stack

[@ryanbutler8724]

Love it

[@dwightl5863]

Any idea what model is that John Deere baler?

[@blackhat1652]

It's a 116W, manufactured between 1946 to 1956.

[@timvala7577]

My neighbor had one of these he used for years and was the only one that had this. It was a wire baler but I couldn’t remember what model. Everyone else had the 14 T balers. They were unstoppable. They hardly ever missed tying a bale.

[@davevonmuenster6649]

Thanks

[@gilreynolds9282]

We had a couple a JDs in the 50s

[@trackhoe23]

At 8:35, anyone know what's going on? What was the crop and would this have been in the spring because the snow fell early?

[@30acreshop_time]

Looks like some sort of cereal grain. And no this would have been in the summer/fall.

[@elephantcompany6061]

The music is terrible. But still a cool video

[@the8mmrailyard-vd6jd]

Thanks. I’ll have to check that one, I usually just use the sound of a projector now a days . I think that’s free KZbin music on that one