The tractor above is my John Deere 2020 gas tractor with 3 point hitch and 'live' PTO. In the first photo I'm pulling a Model 37 International small square baler and in the second photo I'm operating an old John Deere sickle mower to cut some sweet clover. The 2020 was manufactured around 1965 and came from Miami, Manitoba where it was used to cut grass along the highway. The 3 point hitch and rollover protection was custom made for the tractor in Canada.
Above is my old Ford 9N tractor that I use around the yard, and for raking the hay. It was built in 1939, has a flathead 4 cylinder motor with 3 forward and 1 reverse gears. It has the Ford/Furgerson 3 point hitch, but does not have a live PTO. That mean that when you step on the clutch, everything stops including the equipment you are operating! Also the PTO shaft is a smaller diameter than used by modern equipment, so I must use an adapter to compensate for that. This tractor has no external hydraulics; the 3 point lift and draft relief are all internal to the gearbox. The little motor has no water pump, (it uses the siphon method to circulate water like the old Ford cars), and the distributer/coil assembly is mounted on the front of the engine behind the radiator, (not a good place if you're working in the rain or spring a leak in the radiator), and is driven by the camshaft. You might think that it would be difficult to keep this thing running given its age, but surprisingly, parts are available everywhere. It is a very common and useful little tractor. By the way, it should be painted gray not black, but I didn't have any gray paint when I needed it.
Here, I'm making some bales running along the 'swath' of hay that has been drying since I raked it a week or so earlier. If the swath is too wet, then the hay will rot or become moldy in the barn. If it's too dry, then its feed value will be diminished. Usually when I'm ready to bale it rains! The baler picks up the hay with rotating metal fingers, grabs a bunch and pushes it into a chamber where a steel blade cuts it square with the chamber. Meanwhile, a ram squashes the hay with each stroke while a knotter runs twine around the growing bale. When the bale is the desired size, the knotter ties two knots simultaneously, and pushes the finished bale out the back. If all goes right, you get a nice tight square bale like the one in the foreground.
