Bare-backs

I know what they are. I was watching RFD Mecum auction and two D21s went through and both were bare backs. It just made me wounder. Did customers order them or did dealers order them or did allis build them for a reason. Just curious on the thought proses. I get they would be cheaper. But is that the soul reason.

Around my place, everyone used the biggest tractor they had to pull tillage and seeding equipment around fields. Nothing was 3 pt. As long as they had hydraulics, they were good. Most of the farmers that bought these "big" tractors bought em bare back strictly because of money savings. They never dreamt that someday, a D21 would be a small tractor, and a 600 horse quad track would be a "big" tractor. Darrel

That's kinda what I thought

lot of bare back tractors out here on the plains.

Nowdays the so called farmers around here won’t even hook a hayrake behind anything less than 125HP and not without a cab, perish the thought.   I can’t even begin to guess the hours I spent raking hay with a 39 B.

CrestonM wrote: x2, Darrel. I used to think everyone farmed the way we did out here on the plains, using big tractors and pull type implements. Then when we ventured up to Hutch for the first time, I was shocked to see fields smaller than 160 acres. Lol

160 acers! That's bigger than 90% of farms around here, let alone a field. Lol

PaulB, I agree with you. I can't believe some of the tractors I see going up and down the roads nowadays. I don't see how they pay for them, because I know the fields didn't get any bigger. They gotta cost half a million.

Ok that's what I was thinking. But who determined them. Did dealers order them or did the customers order them.

MikeZ started this thread, 'Bare Backs'... I was expecting bare backs alright...
not this type of  bare back... horse rider with no saddle or reigns.

nor one of these grammy award winners... can you imagine one of them out in the hayfield ? LOL


 Now this was what I expected, real BARE BACK...No 3pt arms, housing or PTO, just a plate.



Here is a 220 with extra wide swing drawbar.


  In this part of the world, if you have a farm that is half tillable, your lucky. very few fields around here have a full 80 that can be all tilled... many fields are less than 10 acres, and you work around the swamps and drains and rivers and other problems like highly erodible soils or to steep to farm...
 What is funny is the old timers opened the country up with horses, oxen and breaking plows and stump pullers, then along came the steam engines and the big tractors that were sometimes used to do the work the oxens and horses and sweat an shovels hadn't done yet, then the old steamers and prairie tractors got relegated to the sawmills while the newer inventions came along like more modern small tractors on steel wheels and then the bulldozers. 
 Another more funnier thing that is happening is there people that come up here from Illinois and Iowa thinking they can farm this ground like they do down where they came from... Land is cheap in comparison... They get a rude awakening... first the season isn't as long, the weather is cooler the bu. per acre are far less and they think the northern bumpkins don't know how to farm... and throw fertilizer at the ground and weed/pest sprays and seed while it is to cold and frost still possible. then comes harvest time... one fellow built a huge bin on a place and never has filled it yet and rents every parcel that he can get ahold of to make up the difference.  Dad had always said that this area up here is for grazing, not cash cropping. Go south 60 miles and you can start talking about cash cropping. different weather, different soils... more loams, not lake silt,  sand, clay or peat.


Edited by JC(WI) - 14 Jan 2018 at 9:39pm

And Mike, she's BARE foot too
 mmm do want more 'bare backs' ?  
None bare back... AC440  (Steiger, Cummins triple nickel powered)

Here's another bare back...

and another...

Wagner 1962  WA14

 In the 60's, I never thought to much about bare backs vs. snap coupler of 3pt.  cuzz most of the old tractors supplied a drawbar and a pto and a belt pulley... and many pre 50's did not have any hydraulics, but then so much equipment started to be made for 3pt attachments... and I wondered why so many tractors were still being sold without 3pt on them to accommodate all the new attachments... But knew also that some didn't want to spend the extra dollars for it either.

So how much more would it have cost to get PTO and 3pt over getting it without?