The owner of the Rogue King’s Farm was inspired from a variety of sources, but not from his personal experience! Before buying the property, he had never worked a farm before. Inexperience had him working the 7-acre forested land with hand tools. This misguided strategy didn’t last long, as he needed to search for appropriate tools for the job.
While searching Municibid, a website for towns to auction off old or surplus equipment, he found a yellow 1950’s Farmall Super A tractor with a belly mower. It was being sold by the Department of Public Works of Lewisburg Pennsylvania. The tractor was used by a recently retired member of the DPW who was the only one who knew how to operate the old tractor! It was used either to clear sides of town roads or clear small fields the town owned. Its yellow color (in contrast to the standard Farmall red) was given to identify it as a DPW vehicle. With no operator, they were willing to find a new owner.
There are plenty of benefits to buying an old used tractor. Buying used keeps the impact of manufacturing a new tractor low. These tractors are extremely repairable, and authorized dealers will still provide work on them. And there are small but devoted communities to keeping them running. Boy do they run, too! Because the electrical system is just an alternator and a battery to send charge to the spark plugs (and optional lights), they are incredibly reliable. The downside is that they are almost certainly less fuel efficient compared to modern, fuel-injected tractors. But, since this tractor only runs a couple of times a year, the benefits of fuel efficiency are limited.
The Farmall Super A was trucked over 2 hours back to the Rogue King’s Farm where it was able to make its first cuts to the field, a drastic improvement over a push mower. It is also indispensable in hauling lumber from the tree stand at the back of the property using a cart.
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