TRACTOR TRIVIA and other interesting stuff 5/18/2024

[953 nut 55,155]

Today’s letter is “P”          planning and patience yielded perfection

Planet Jr walk-behind garden tractor

 

Company founder S.L. Allen had a variety of interests including astronomy, winter sports and agriculture. As a young man he worked on a farm owned by his father and developed many labor-saving devices to reduce the drudgery of seeding and weeding.

In 1868, after winning his first two patents for the No. 1 and No. 2 Planet Jr. seed drills, Allen launched his own company, S.L. Allen & Co., Philadelphia.  The Planet Jr. line got its name from Allen’s interest in astronomy.

Allen was a prolific inventor and good businessman being awarded more than 300 patents.  Within 13 years his Planet Jr. became a leader in human powered farm and garden implements here and abroad. The Planet Jr. line was displayed at the Centennial International Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 and the 1889 International Exposition in Paris.

Their target market was the “one-horse farmer,” at that time the U.S. had between 6 and 7 million farms and 40% of the total U.S. population lived on farms.

 

 

Also in 1889, Allen won a patent for the Flexible Flyer sled. Motivated by a life-long passion for winter sports and the desire to avoid seasonal factory layoffs, Allen expanded his product line. The rights to manufacture this sled have changed hands a few times since then but you can still buy a Flexible Flyer today!

Although S.L. Allen & Co. started in the wheel hoe business (human-powered and horse drawn wheeled weeding and seeding equipment) and the Planet Jr. walk behind garden tractor, first introduced in 1930, was a natural extension. It featured a small gasoline engine, two large spiked steel wheels placed so the tractor could straddle a row of plants and a detachable toolbar for cultivating tools.

Planet Jr. wasn’t the only walk-behind cultivating tractor, but it became the most popular along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes area, where small family farms and large vegetable farms were abundant.  Successive models of the Planet Jr. tractor added a wide variety of implements including fertilizer hoppers and seeders to their liner.

My father used a Planet Jr. walk-behind tractor like the one pictured below until 1957, I was too young to operate it because of its size but remember it well.

[8ntruck 6,998]

The sled in the picture looks almost identical to the old sled I had as a kid.  I'm pretty sure that it was my dad's.

[Beap52 809]

The sled looks like one we had when kids.  We would rub candle wax on the runners to make them slide over the snow easier.  Can't say it necessarily worked but it's what we did.

 

Our electric cooperative sends out a monthly magazine.  Last month there was an advertisement for two wheel tractors.  I think the company name was BCS or something.  I started to take a picture of the advertisement and post here but wasn't sure something like that was allowed.  I was surprised to see these still made--I just assumed they were obsolete.  We certainly have a form of two wheel tractors in roto tillers but the multi-implement use tractors still have their place. 

[8ntruck 6,998]

 I used to carry a piece of paraffin to use on the sled runners.

[953 nut 55,155]

10 hours ago, Beap52 said:

The sled looks like one we had when kids.  We would rub candle wax on the runners to make them slide over the snow easier.  Can't say it necessarily worked but it's what we did.

 

Our electric cooperative sends out a monthly magazine.  Last month there was an advertisement for two wheel tractors.  I think the company name was BCS or something.  I started to take a picture of the advertisement and post here but wasn't sure something like that was allowed.  I was surprised to see these still made--I just assumed they were obsolete.  We certainly have a form of two wheel tractors in roto tillers but the multi-implement use tractors still have their place. 

I remember using the paraffin from the sealing on jam jars to wax the sled runners and toboggan as a kid.

There are a few two wheel and one wheel garden tractors being made but raised bed gardening and changing times have reduced the amount of home garden plots.  

[peter lena 8,600]

@953 nut  back in the day , if you grew up in the post ww2 era , everything was ADDAPTING TO AN ISSUE , you did not have a specific  anything to correct a problem  @8ntruck  that paraffin wax  was also carried by my father  for his ice skates. I also used  that wax on my flexible flyer sleds , like a secret slick . had a very sudden related sled stop with a park bench as a kid , after a paraffin touch up on an ice slope , headed toward a wide stream , get wet or stop  ?  impact / spin , the memories  remain . other very obvious thing is period pieces , had zero  safety anything , remember being pulled thru a brush patch , by a JARI BRUSH CUTTER , another  thorny lesson .  thanks for the flash back , pete

[8ntruck 6,998]

I distinctly remember one sled run when all of a sudden there was no sled under me at the bottom of the hill.  The sled stopped, I didn't and stopped completely clear of the sled.  When I investigated, I found a large rock in front of one of the runner's buried in the snow.

 

Interesting how a tractor history thread has turned into a sledding nostolgia thread.

Edited May 19 by 8ntruck

[Beap52 809]

I had written that two wheel tractors were almost extinct but later got to thinking that they are widely used in places like Philippines and Thailand.  One like pictured below is much more common the four wheeled tractors in Asian countries.  Small farms and low annual income attribute to their popularity.  Often times they are hooked up to a trailer and may be the family's main mode of transportation and I suppose have pretty much replaced the carabao.   From 1993 until 2009 we lived in either the Philippines and Thailand and saw these machines almost daily.   

 

There, we're back on topic