The Big Book of Farmall Tractors

I came about purchasing this book in a bit of a strange way. Last week I went to our local Theisen's store to purchase a small rodent live trap. There are numerous ground squirrels (aka chipmunks) that are completely overrunning our garden in the backyard. So it is now my duty catch them and release them out in the wild of the country side.

Anyway, I headed on over to the store with my two year old. As we arrived it started raining a bit. We ran in, and within a few minutes, the sky decided to completely open up and dump a massive amount of rain on the area. So, we were kind of stuck in the store until the rain let up. Hence how I came to come across this book. So we wandered the store eating fresh popcorn (Thiesen's pops free popcorn every day!!!!) and picking up random items (like this book).

Growing up we had a few Farmalls around the farm. I have vague memories of an older one that we used for mowing grass. When I asked my dad about it, it turned out to be a much smaller tractor than I remembered. I was thinking it was an H model, but in fact it was a Farmall Cub, which is basically an overgrown lawn tractor. I guess things just seem bigger when you are young!

We also had two larger (and newer) Farmalls on the farm as well. An 806 diesel and a 706 diesel. Both were wide front axle models. The 806 also had the front wheel assist axle, which we would switch on and off depending on the time of year. Let me tell you, it was a bit of pain to do so from what I remember. Also, those front wheel assist axles made turning that 806 a major pain in the rear. The newer models these days are so much better in that respect. Okay, enough about the tractors I remember driving. On to the book.

There is a fair amount of farming history woven into the chronological presentation of the Farmall tractor series, which was quite interesting to me. Seeing how the times shaped the design of the tractors, to how the competition drove design features, and so on.

The author spends a large portion of the book on the letter series tractors, which I would argue are the iconic image of the Farmall series. Specifically the H model. All models of Farmall are covered up to 1985 when International Harvester was purchased and merged with Case. So the book is a good reference too, especially when it seems that the model numbers changed every year in 1970's.

All in all a very good read (to me anyway) for someone who likes red tractors and has an affinity to farming. Hopefully not to many people hunt me down here in Iowa for not liking that other color tractor that is so popular here.