Posted by Harold Holiman on March 24, 1998 at 18:00:11:
In the Tractor Talk Archives there is a question from Bonehead on March 14, asking what distillate fuel was and what was the octane. In the Mississippi Delta, all distillate tractors were run on "tractor fuel", which was, for all practical purposes, just like kerosene. It was necessary to start the tractor on gasoline and then after it warmed up you would switch it over to the tractor fuel. Although the power output was less for tractor fuel, it wasn't octane rated but I would guess it was probably the equivalent of 60 or 70 octane, the cost of tractor fuel was about one half of the price of gasoline per gallon, which made economic sense. After the war as the price of tractor fuel became closer to the price of gasoline, gasoline started to become the fuel of choice. In the Delta during the 50's LP Gas became the fuel of choice with many farmers and during the 60's diesel quickly became the fuel of choice. The last tractor models from International which were available from the factory equipped to run distillate/tractor fuel were the 350 and 450 series in the mid 50's.