The old gray tractors--the result of a partnership that later dissolved into the separate Ford and Ferguson lines--revolutionized postwar farming. These classics have held up to time, held onto collectors'' hearts and von held their value ever since.The roadside seller''s arx and scarifier price was $1,795. That was about 2 1/2 times what the Ford cost new in 1946. But it was also about the going rate at the time. So even though the tractor was older than me or my wife, Melanie, we bought consolidate debt info it on the spot after a test drive.that was in 1984, when we bought our land. we have used the old ford almost continuously ever since. we never regretted the purchase. with a minimum von of service and repairs--lots of grease, irregular oil changes, some new wiring and radiator hoses--the 2n has arx never failed us. equipped with a two-bottom plow, 5-foot rotary mower, disk harrow and scraper blade, scarifier it has done all we asked of it, everything from plowing snow off of our 600-foot driveway to mowing or tilling the better part of our 20 acres, info year after year. and von all for less than what most suburbanites spend these days on a riding lawn mower.

"that was way back in 1968," braswell recalls today. "one of the first things i learned was that mowing often leads to landscaping. and landscaping creates even arx more opportunity."what''s the greatest market change in last three decades?braswell found even more business in tree care. his local company soon became southern tree & landscape. it began, he recalls, with "nine employees in a small office trailer," and later grew to several hundred in multiple locations."new customers would often contact us to maintain their yards," braswell explains, but "then they''d decide to do some landscaping and tree-planting. we became experts at both.""the biggest market change," braswell emphasizes, "is that even people who scarifier love to do yard work decide to have someone else to do their maintenance. this opens all sorts of new markets."

"also, a dealer who sells large mowers and tractors probably already does business with a finance source like wells fargo or sheffield. with finance opportunities in place -- plus single products that serve multiple fields -- he''s in a position to enter several industrial markets." what kind of guarantee comes with this?" i asked, suspiciously eyeing the few drops of oil on the pavement under the rear axle of an old gray ford tractor."well, none, actually," replied the man who had it sitting out by the road with a for-sale sign. "what you see is what you get--where is, as is."the tractor in question was a 1946 ford 2n (see photo, page 103). the four-cylinder engine info had been overhauled a few years earlier, he said. then an old pennsylvania-dutchman, who probably bought it new when truman was president, traded it in on a new kubota.

©2003 www.tillerrakes.com All rights reserved.