farming pictures, late 60s, early 70s

From some family slides that Mom had printed into a book for my brother and I. I've posted some a few years ago on here. In 1964, my Great Grandfather, 3 of his sons, and 1 Son-in-law, joined to form Price Farms Inc. in western Maryland. They built a state of the art facility for the time, and milked around 200 cows. Hopefully I got the pictures posted. The picture of the farm must be a pretty early one, because they built grain bins back by the mix mill later with a leg and load out, and there's a few silo's missing.

JL2510 Thanks for the photos. We had a Grove hydraulic wagon and a 3 point hitch Kemper Kutter chopper. My dad would drive right to the blower with chopper and wagon.

Here is that last 4020 with my son and I in 2016. My Grandfather is on it in the other picture. It got a John Deere wide front in the 80s along with a loader. Then a roll gard and canopy in the late 90s during a straw season heat wave (it was the baler tractor by then). My brother baled 20,000 bales a summer for several summers on that tractor. And spent a lot of time on Grandads knee on it when it was the loader tractor. When they were finally selling it to upgrade a few years back my brother bought it and repainted it. Its been in our family since new except for a short time it was sold to a neighbor. I just came home from a tractor pull in this picture (placed 3rd!) and was going to get the lights working correctly again. My boy was excited to get a ride from the house to the shop.

Great pictures enjoyed them.

Thanks for posting. I always liked driving by your grandfather's operation. Lots of big tractors and machinery. They must of had about 7 or 8 of those Grove forage boxes when they quit. If you have more keep posting. Tom

JL in the photo where possibly your grandad is carrying the bale, do you know if they were maybe harvesting grass seed on the road side? My grandpa would harvest brome grass seed and also late summer 3rd or 4th cutting alfalfa seed. Probably in the same time frame of your photos or earlier. This would be in Northeast Kansas, not the western part known for its large wheat fields.

great pictures ! thanks for posting them!
can you tell me more about the farming operation?
livestock numbers, model of tractors? acres?
if looks like they were very progressive farmers !

again thanks

We had a kemper-cutter and 1 farm-hand rear unloading wagon. Started using it on a 4010 lp tractor, had to much power, shear pin wouldn't last. Put a 801 Ford diesel on it and was a perfect fit. We started with a pit in side of hill. But finished with big bales on top of a hill, with a head gate on a skid about 16ft. Long. Pushed head gate up about every day, with a JD 50 and 45 loader. And moved electric fence. Fairly easy for the time.

x2!!

Vic were was your farm? Ours was in Treadwell N.Y. Winter and not having flat ground near the barn for a bunk. Built a 50x104 freestall and pulled a feeder wagon in for cows to eat out of.

I enjoy the pictures, they're interesting.

What kept the grain from leaking out of the back of that silage wagon. I know they had rubber flaps that would seal for silage and hay but doubt they would be all that tight for grain. Ours would leak a little ground ear corn. when We chopped into them.

South Eastern Illinois. Just had 30 beef cows.

I never heard the number of acres although adding up in my head I'd say they owned at least 800 plus rented ground, Milking around 200 Holsteins, + heifers at another farm, 5 60' silos at this farm and 1 at the heifer barn, double 9 herringbone parlor, milking took 2 hours, there was 2 sets of "cow lots" each with rows of open faced stalls, and each with a long feed bunk fed from the silos in the middle, (nowadays I guess there would be a giant freestall barn instead), later I remember the middle manger having computer feeders that read an electronic tag each cow wore which would automatically spit out the individual cows ration, they got the design for the farm from the milk coop Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers. I was working in neighboring West Virginia a few months ago and passed an identical farm. I figured they had the same plans back in the day.

There were 5 boys in the family and 4 girls. When the oldest 3 boys each got married great grandad (Chester, the one carrying the bale in front of the old open combine) would give them 30 cows and tell them to start paying him back. By 1964 Chester, 3 of the boys, and one son in law joined together and built this farm. The 2 older sons stayed on their own. From what I can tell Chester had a good mind for business and they were a state of the art operation in their time.

In time, 2 of the brothers left to pursue other careers, and Chester passed in the mid 70s. Grandad and Uncle Fred kept going together until around 80. By then their families were getting older and they realized they were going to have to double in size or split to make room for the next generation. They amicably divided the equipment and farms. Grandad entered the Dairy Buyout in '86, and crop farmed until retirement. He was tired of milking cows and he would have soon had to have put in manure handling facilities as those regulations were starting to come around.

One of his son now is a grain farmer continuing the tradition.

They used John Deere tractors. 2 3020s, 3 4020s, a 4320, and 4520 in the era of these pictures. Later these would be traded in. My earliest memories are of a 4430, 4640, and one of the old 4020s. The rest were gone.

I'll try to tack on a picture of the tractor line up.

And for a year or 2 they got with one of the older brothers along with a neighbor and rented some big farms in the county. I have a picture of them all together plowing too. The red tractors are the neighbor.

No grass seed harvested around here that I ever heard of. He should be doing wheat or barley. I THINK that was taken in the field along the barn lane.

Love the old pics. Thanks to all for posting. RB

Forgot to say thanks for posting the pictures they are great and thanks for the info. The family of my best man for my wedding were milking about 200 cows in an 8 cow parlor, maybe it was 10. This was in the late 80s, at one point they tried milking a percentage of the upper producing cows three times a day. They also had one of those feeding systems with the magnetic neck pods that triggered the ration. Unfortunately my friend was a little mischievous and came to an untimely demise trying to create some improvised explosives to remove a stump. Soon after that the upgrade cost to meet the new manure handling regulations pushed the family to quit the dairy business. I should add for a time they ran Case tractors, then my buddy who went into the ag tech program at a local college saw the internal durability of John Deere tractors he swapped the whole farm over to JD. At one point they had four 4020 power shifts to pull the chopper boxes. At the same time a 4430 power shift with HFWA as a loader tractor. A 4320, 5020 turbo, and a 4640 and 4840 both power shifts.

great pictures , and a great story ! thanks for taking time to answer my questions,
and thanks for the extra pictures.

that era , was the best farming era i think!

Many forage wagons were tight enough for grain. Deere made a grain shield for the unloading hole on their Chuck Wagons. I have used mine for small grain a few times. Tom

Enjoy seeing the pictures. Can you tell me what the brackets under the 530 in the silo filling picture are for?

It had a mid mounted sickle bar mower. Those are the mounts.

Oh you mean back then OH , here it looks like a NORMAL year . Not that long agop i was running a Massey 300 doing custom work . For a small machine it would plum eat crop . In good corn it took a fleet to keep up with it . First year i did corn for one of the local big time auctioneers i told him that i did not like setting waiting on trucks or wagons . He told oh we can keep up with one truck and two wagons . He had LONG fields so i spotted the truck out by the road and the one tractor and two 350 Bushel wagons at the far end and started . He said he would be back to check on me . Made a couple adjustment ran a little ways stopped checked made one more adjustment and stuffed in second gear and it was off to the races . I had to unload at both ends and in no time everything was full . When he shows up i am setting out by the road with a full bin and no place to unload . So he runs to a neighbor and get his truck two wagons and another tractor . Ended up with three 16 foot trucks and six wagons and three tractors hauling seven miles yield came in at 178 dry . i would run just about 400 acres of corn thru it a year and around 150 -175 small grain . Best 650 dollar mistake i ever made plus the 7.50 for the corn head and a 150 for the cab and 35 for the alt. change over from the 27 amp gen. . I could get in where the big guys could not and get thru the soft spots that planted the big combines .

Thankyou, we never had the mid mounts , so I did not recognize the brackets.