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Allan: You have a good point, and very few folks ever think of it anymore. I never saw any great advantage in high speed plowing or disking other then you made it more expensive. Cultivators are another kettle of fish but even they have a speed limit. The first year I had my 5x16 plow I pulled it with 1066, however plowing with 656 reduced the fuel and wear part cost per acre substancially. Sure the 656 was in 2nd gear most of the time, however a 656 in 2nd gear with 5 bottoms plows the same amount of land at the end of the day as a 656 in 3rd gear with 4 bottoms. Bear in mind I am talking sandy loam. if one is plowing heavy clay he may have to reduce each by one bottom. On my farm I had the ocasional stone, about the size of a basketball, frost kept bringing them up each year. When I convinced my cowboys 3.5 mph was fast enough, we stopped breaking disk blades. The medhod I used to convince them, was give them only enough hp so 3.5 mph was their speed limit. Most disks I've seen doing 5-6 mph, did a decent job of windrowing soil. I used to do a bit of custom combining, and I never liked using my combine header as a land leveller. I remember one farm in particular, I had done custom work on this land in the 60s. From a field husbandry point of view, probably the smoothest soil surface around. Then a guy got hold of that land that owned a big 4x4 tractor, but couldn't afford any big implements. In ten years he was gone. The new owner ask me to spray this land. I went in there with 36' boom. I couldn't believe land could become so rough in ten years. My 656 was on 72" wheel tread, and I couldn't stop the end of my booms from hitting the ground, even with boom at 3' off ground. Until that time I thought one would need construction equipment to make that much mess.
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