Farmall historical farm usage question

I own a Farmall Super C, but I do not own a farm or do any farming with it. I am very curious about what size farm the Super C would typically be found on. How many acres would a farmer use the Super C for?

Also, are there any general guidelines for the size of fields and the size of the in the 1940s and 50s? Basically, if the farmer had this many acres he could use a Super C, but if he had that many acres, he wanted an H or M.

I am just very curious about what size and what type of farm my tractor and Farmalls in general could have been used on.

Thanks,

John

I?d say 80 to 120 acres for a Cor Super C.
An H for 160 Acres and an M you were big time.

Around here a Super C was an additional tractor used for light jobs like mowing, raking,
cultivating, spraying, some planting etc. I never saw a C pull any tillage equipment. Most
farms were like 160 to 320 acres in those days.

C or Super C was usually a helper tractor for cultivating, mowing, pulling wagons, other lighter jobs. Maybe the main tractor on a 40-60 acre farm. Great tractors, very easy on fuel.

Our neighbor, with a full time job as a grade school Janitor, tilled and planted about 65 acres with
his sole tractor being a SC. We custom harvested (big time with a 12' SP125 McCormick combine)
about 3 farms. Jim

Dad had 120 acres, about 50 open, the rest pasture & woods. In the late forties he bought a Farmall B & sold the horses. Mid 50's we got a Super C. I still have both.

A guy down the road from us farmed 80 acres with one in the 50's and 60's. Plowed, disked. dragged, planted, and pulled the corn
picker and combine with it. I have one myself but don't use it much as I have 3 modern day tractors that are more dependable to
get my farm work done.

I have two pages of IH advertising from the '40's, describing the Super C. According to IH your tractor is good for 120 acres of diversified farming or a large vegetable farm or as an extra tractor for small jobs on a large farm. It is suitable for two row cultivation and depending on the soil, it will pull one large plow or two small ones. One of the pages pictures a SC equipped with a two-row corn planter.

I wasn't around then, but Dad
supposedly farmed 320 acres
with a DC, similar to an m,
and a Ford jubilee. I don't
know how much of that was
actually plowed. I did know
the neighbor to the South of
our farm worked 120 acres with
a B and an H JD. But the time I can remember dad farmed about 300 acres and did a lot of custom work and his big tractor was an 830, he still has the DC and jubilee. At the end he was farming 400 or a little more with a 970 and 730 for tillage tractors and a bunch of older stuff for yard work and pulling wagons and such.

When I was in high school I talked my Dad into trading his B for a Super C - on our 60 acres.
2-12 plow, 6' disk, 7' mower, 2 row planter.

This is really a fun topic. As posted below, I don't think the sc was used much as the main tractor on a farm. But if it were I would hate to have to take care much more then 50
acres tillable with it. Weren't they like 25 horse power?

(quoted from post at 20:21:16 05/31/19) I own a Farmall Super C, but I do not own a farm or do any farming with it. I am very curious about what size farm the Super C would typically be found on. How many acres would a farmer use the Super C for?

Also, are there any general guidelines for the size of fields and the size of the in the 1940s and 50s? Basically, if the farmer had this many acres he could use a Super C, but if he had that many acres, he wanted an H or M.

I am just very curious about what size and what type of farm my tractor and Farmalls in general could have been used on.

Thanks,
John

Click to expand...

I like the answer by pete 23 the best.

It would be totally dependent on the geographic area.

As an example, here in northern ND there were very few C's (I've only seen one locally) and even H's and M's quickly became collector's items or scrapiron as quickly as higher HP tractors became available.

During the days of the C and Super C, the average size farm around here ranged from 80 to 320 acres. This size
tractor in my area was typically used for lighter jobs, and generally a larger tractor was used for the work
horse. For instance, the C might of been used for raking hay, while the plowing was done with an M.

Kinda of the same size tractor, my neighbors father farmed 40
acres with a Farmall B. I think he ran just a small dairy farm
and had an off farm job.

OK guys, go back in history. The vast majority of farmers used horses right up into the late 40's and early 50's. When tractors first came out they were way too expensive for the average farm. For example the Farmall regular was $825 when it first came out. Lot of farms were poor. Basically raised enough to feed themselves and make a little money on the side. Go back and look. Around 1940 there were about 35,000,000 farmers in the US. Now go look up production numbers. I'll bet you money that total numbers were no where close to 35,000,000 by 1940 TOTAL. Farmers were used to working 6 days a week dawn to dusk. When they were not tending to livestock or in the field they were fixing fences and cutting firewood. So when they finally went over to a tractor that little 23 HP tractor could plow about 1.1 acres an hour with a 2-12 plow. Heck of a lot of farms across the US were 140-160 acre dairies with 70-100 tillable acres. Figure about 1/3 of that in hay? Farmers back then thought that doing 60-70 acres in a week was darned good. Most of the guys buying SC's and similar sized tractors survived the Great Depression. Many were not spending one penny more than they had to.

Rick

Dad owned 200 acres, about 100 was pasture and 100 was crops.

When the ditch went through and he added tile and it got closer to 200 acres farmed, he replaced the C with a Farmall 300. Mom always said she liked the little C, but
dad would reply it just wasn?t big enough to keep up.

Back then crops yielded 25bu beans, 100bu corn, a 1/4 of a farm was small grains to spread out the work load.

Now a days with 50+ beans, 180 bu corn, and almost no small grains, couldn?t keep up with double the 300 on 200acres.

Dad had 3 tractors got to 4 when I was able to help more hours. The 300 would have been the middle one as I recall; the H was the loader and an Oliver 88 was the
bigpuller back then.

Paul

My neighbor had 20 dairy cows, owned about 25 acres tillable, and rented out about 20 acres more. He grew hay, oats, and enough corn to fill the silo, maybe five acres.

He had the dealer bring a new Super C to try out, took it to a tough spot at the bottom of a long slope, but it wouldn't pull the plows uphill. They took the Super C back and brought a Super H, which he used for years. I don't know if he hooked the Super C to his old trailer plows, but I'll bet he did.

Zeke B.

you weren't around then so its hard to explain but when the Cs were new that was plenty of tractor on 80 or so acres. In my area some of the Cs replaced the Bs which all were better than horses

Lots of C International tractors were used in my
area, South Central Ontario. These little tractors
could carry a mid mount mower for cutting hay as
well as two row scufflers to cultivate between corn
rows. Couple things to keep in mind, the
International C , H , W4 and even W6 and M where
often the first tractors on many farms. They were
used to do jobs formerly done by heavy horses.
Tractors were hard to come by during WW 2, and
not too many pre war farms had gone to or fully
adopted tractors. So when the war was over, and
things started to pickup economically speaking,
farmers started to look at getting a tractor to speed
up their work, along with their teams of horses. My
dad started farming after his war was over in 1945,
taking over from my grandfather. My Grandfather
never owned a tractor, and my dad bought the first
tractor in 1948 , a Case V with a three bottom trail
plough. Before the Case tractor came to our farm,
my dad and Grampa would both go to the field with
a single plough and a team of horses, and could
each plough one acre per day. That little CaseV
tractor with its 3 bottom trail plough could turn out
five acres with one man in the same time. Farmers
had equipment built for work horses to pull already
on the farm, so a farmer would cut the long wooden
tongue down a bit shorter, and bolt a steel plate top
and bottom side, to make it so the new tractor could
then pull the cultivator, rake, wagon, grain binder,
and maybe seed drill too. So early tractors really
just replaced the teams of horses on farms in
Eastern Canada and Northern USA. So little tractor
like the IH C , fit well on many farms. By the end of
the 1950s few farms had any horses left to work in
the field. Farmers were buying increasingly bigger
tractors and equipment built for tractors. And
smaller tractors like the IH C had , just like the work
horses they replace, found themselves now with no
jobs left on the farm, except mowing hay, pulling a
wagon, and scuffling corn. Herbicide soon took
away the corn scuffling too. I believe that few of the
early tractors really got worn out before they
became out dated, and that is why so many are still
putting around. Things like no 3pth no independent
pto left these tractors to be traded in on newer
better equipped tractors.

Thank you everyone! I really appreciate all this historical information. I just finished my senior year of high school so obviously I have no firsthand experience of what farmers used in the 40s or 50s.

Just to perhaps provide some more context, I live in western Pennsylvania, but I often go up to northwest Pennsylvania to bike and fish. A friend of ours owns a house right next to a 25 acre farm field, and I always wonder if a Super C might have been used on that field or fields like it in western Pennsylvania.

Just for what it's worth. My wife's grandfather retired from farming in 1953/54. Had 200 acres with about 60 tillable. Never owned a tractor. Just ask my mother in law about that. She is 84 so would have been about 18/19 when he retired. Her brother getting drafted is what sparked him to retire. Couldn't do 60 acres with horses by himself.

Rick

Our family farm is in Indiana County Pennsylvania with some hills, 97 acres with 55 tillable. Grandpa bought the first tractor around 1940, a Farmall B.
In 1950 he was wanted to trade it in on a C but the dealer told him wait a little bit, the Super C model was coming out. He bought the first Super C sold
in our county, I still have it.

Papa had cultivators and planters for his. Farmed 90 acres with it. When he retired, we cultivated with it for many years. Papa kept his garden with it for years after that up until the day he passed away. Had a little set of harrows he pulled.

Around here in the Finger Lakes Region during the time the Super C was produced the "average" farm was 60-70 acres with some pasture, hay, and orchard thrown in.
Nearly all those farms had a 2 plow tractor which was a JD B or Farmall H or bigger. A lot of those farms had two tractors and perhaps three with an eye on growing in size.
Often a neighbor with 30-40 acres would retire but want to keep the ground until they passed on. They would rent that land out to a neighbor who would need to have more
than one tractor. A C or Super C would have been a second or third tractor on those farms cultivating or cutting hay along with raking hay. Some smaller vegetable farms
might have a Super C to do 20-25 acres solo.

I cannot see that Case ever being able to pull a 3 bottom plow in the ground. They were classed as a small 2 plow or even a as a single plow tractor. The D was the one for a 3 bottom plow with the S for a 2 bottom.

A 230 ac. black land cotton farm, just outside East Bernard, Tx., was farmed near 20 yrs.
with a JD H as the only tractor. One of the kids, now in his 80's, told me, him and his
brothers would take turns running the tractor around the clock. It is amazing what you can
do with hard work. (he still has the tractor & every piece of equipment)

My Dad made them take the fenders off the Super C and refund the cost. Fenders
on a tractor??? Foolishness!

We raised tobacco in Md. The super C was equipped with a two row cultivators and fertilizer side dresser attachment. No fluid in the tires and only one small wheel wt each side to reduce compaction. We also had a sickle bar mower for it.
The W30 Farmall was the plow tractor. I still have the SC. Dad got me and the
tractor both in 1953. It was the last brand new thing he got for many years, except for my brothers and sister. We kept him poor. lol

Yes. A "V" would be a single bottom plow tractor or perhaps 2 X 12 in easy going around here. On the home farm here Grandpa had to have a Farmall M to pull 2 X 14's. He had the only M while there were 3 H's as primary tractors in the neighborhood. I don't think that 2 of those 3 H's did any kind of heavy tillage work. Things changed a lot over the 1940's in terms of tractors. 1940 most farms only had one tractor and a few such as Grandpa had 2. A lot of tractors got bought after WWII once production got back to normal. By 1950 it was as I said before that most farms had two tractors here.

My dad?s farm was very light sandy loam, and his V and later VA had no problem pulling the three 11 inch Ace bottom spring hitch trail plough. Never would have won any land speed records, but I remember dad Ploughing with the Case VA. On the land I farm now, I would most certainly agree , a Case VA wouldn?t turn a furrow in the clay ground I farm.

grandpa had one for a companion for his M the M did the plowing and other heavy work on his 180 acre farm in Illinois, the C did the lighter chores, pulling carts, wagons, feeding cattle ect

Dad farmed a quarter section with a B Farmall (offset before the C and a bit smaller) and his heavy tillage tractor, a C Case (about 30 hp). Now I have five acres and have a 4020, D15 Allis Chalmers, G John Deere and a 620 John Deere.

Here is my grandfather and my youngest uncle. This would have been in the late 40s. My grandfather loved his horses, and there was no tractor until around the time of this pic when an older uncle came in with him and immediately got an 8N. They would have been milking around 40 head.






The uncle helping him lived in CT at that time. Notice his commuting vehicle as well as my grandfather's barn in the background. My grandfather, who had been a carpenter, built 2/3 of that barn onto one that was already there. It fell down 15 months ago.



.

My maternal grandfather's first tractor was a McCormick 10/20. He added a Farmall A as a second tractor. He had 30 cow dairy. When my uncle took over the farm he bought a WD as his big tractor. My paternal Grandfather's first tractor was a Fordson. Had around 35 milkers at the time. Pop found a used unstyled WC to suppliment the Fordson. Right after the war he found a used Farmal M, got rid of the Fordson. and shortly after that he swapped the unstyled WC for a newer styled WC. At the time of the Fordson we had about 180 acres with maybe a bit over half tillable. By 1950 Pop doubled the herd, and was buying every acre he could afford to buy and renting land too. The M was quickly overtaxed and traded for an Oliver 88 in 1954.

Pop was fond of saying that the Fordson was 100 times better than farming with horses, (he never much likes horse type farming) the WC's were 100 times better than the Fordson, the M was 100 times better than the WC's, and the 88 was a thousand times better than the M, and it was what he considered the first decent tractor he owned.

The uncle helping him lived in CT at that time. Notice his commuting vehicle as well as my grandfather's barn in the background.

Great photograph! Must have been quite the thing back then to pilot his own light plane to your grandfather's farm and set it down in a field. Not exactly commonplace today, either. Can't tell but looks like your grandfather is wearing a tie while he mows.