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MF 258 Agriculteur

Here is the latest edition to my fleet.  It is a very good straight runner and comes with plough, rotovator and ridging plough.  It is a heavy little beast with front end and wheel weights and traction seems to be exceptionally good.  I think I will start a vegetable garden again!!

John
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RE:MF 258 Agriculteur

That's a nice garden tiller.  You now have the opportunity for some fresh veggies this summer.  I can not say I have seen a modern tiller like this especially with the different attachments.  Nice find, John.

GTE

Glad to see the pic posted as well - good job!!!!

RE:MF 258 Agriculteur

John,

What a great little M-F machine from the classic era, it will fit into your collection very well and I expect to see it in operation later in the year on the extended vegetable garden. With the additional Pony's you are feeding right now you will need to grow many more carrots, shame they don't like traditional sprouts!!! Maybe you should try growing a few rows of corn??  

Malcolm.

RE:MF 258 Agriculteur

Two months has now passed since we heard about the arrival of the M-F Agriculteur and
M-F 116E grass cutter in Bethesda, so expect as we are now well into Spring both these machines are being used for the benefit of the garden? I don't want vegetables to be in short supply next time I am over there so hope the machinery has been working well to look after my eating interests as well as the M-H-F connection.

Malcolm.

RE:MF 258 Agriculteur


Malcolm/John:

You don't want to get in too big of a hurry to dig up the land and plant the vegetables as you may be getting that storm comming your way that was at my place on Wednesday May 2nd "Steve Miller's Birthday" it was a bad one for erosion. We got 3 & 1/2 inches of rain in about an hour with golf ball size hail.

Here is a picture of my next door neighbor's 160 achre field that he just got done planting last week, it washed so bad there is at least 2-3 feet deep of good topsoil sitting at the bottom next to my line fence I am sure he will have to plant the field all over again after he gets a dozer out there to push all the dirt back up the hill.

I knew this was going to happen one of these days soon because if you look just about anywhere arround here it is brown dirt fields as far as the eye can see it is very rare to see a green field of hay or even a waterway ocasionally. If the winds would pick up it could be the Dirty 30s dust bowl all over again here in a heartbeat!!

Malcolm I bet your just about cringing just reading this as I know you and most people over there are real big on erosion practices and stewardship of the land. Over here it is all about raping the land for everything it is worth to get the biggest crop so they can pay higher rent prices and outbid the compition the next year.

Now after all that, getting back to the subject at hand I would like to know if the MF 258 Agriculteur tiller performs as good as it looks? It sure is a cool looking machine! I wonder if it will aerate the soil better to produce larger Carrots, potatos, ect.

Joe 
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RE:MF 258 Agriculteur

Joe/Malcolm,

We can always rely on you two to think of your stomachs!

As it so happens, we have a bit of weather improvement here so after finishing off a few essential jobs on the farm I finally got round to going over the Autoculteur.  Gave it a rub down with an oily rag and a a few minor jobs then a single pull after a two month lay off and it started.  Next need some photos for an article on it in our Ferguson Heritage magazine.  I also need to check the oil in the drive chain which has some funny metric size level stud as yet to be undone.

Another minor job that has gone to a mate of mine is a small fix on the ridging body.  One of the adjusting arms had at some time broken off and it had been welded back on in a non-adjustbale mode!  That's the French for you!!

I used to do a lot of vegetable gardening in my own and next door's garden but now the kids have flown the demand is not so great .  But the massively rising costs of food suggest that I should resume this activity.  I think maybe next year.  Joe - I will fence off a plot "over the wall" so I have a bit more room to manouever the Autoculteur and have wide rows for ease of operation.  One learns to make life easy in older (but not old!) age.

So watch this space next year folks and see the results of my labours.  We are in a very windy area so some veg are out such as tall runner beans which get blown over and dwarf French beans which have poor anchorage and tend to end up spinning round like a helicopter rotor.  I will of course have to plant a large area of carrots to feed Steve Miller's Ponys!  Corn is a no hoper here due to our lower temperatures and the wind.

John

 

RE:MF 258 Agriculteur

Hi all,

Can you believe I've finally made it into the loop??  Cause for a celebration & great indebtedness to my wife!

We ate what we thought was our last picking of last year's fall crop of spinach on Christmas.  Then the snow came & we figured that was the end of it.  When the snow melted this spring, here was the green stuff actually growing!   We've feasted on the gigantic leaves ever since!  That's a new experience in all our years of gardening.  We planted potatoes this spring on March 17--unusually early for Iowa.  (John, you'd better get that new tiller in gear & enjoy some veggies besides just corn!)

What is the recipe for oil you apply to old original tractors?

Browns

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RE:MF 258 Agriculteur

Hi Dennis,

Well with all that spinach you should have added zest and strength for the on-going tractor work now you are retired!  Strange how the conversation always turns to food on this site!!

The oil recipe I use is about 25% new 30s oil and about 75% diesel.  I simply spray it on with one of these pump up, hand operated garden sparyers which hold maybe quarter-half a gallon.  I do them twice a year and it certainly stops any deterioration and good clean rust as one gets one N American tractors certainly comes up nice.

take care, John

RE:MF 258 Agriculteur

John,

 Thats just Popeye that gets all the strength from spinach. Hard to beat good spinach though.
 Retired just means changing places of work. Nice being my own boss again.
 Your recipe is simple enough. I thought you had some special ingredients like linseed oil.
 Doesn't  the oil tend to collect dust?
 Have you ever see 32 inch original Challenger round spokes??
 
Thanks Dennis


RE:MF 258 Agriculteur

Dennis,

Yes the oil will collect a bit of dust but I don't worry about that.  Just rub them down if you want to take them out to a show otherwise the great benefit of the dust and oil mix is that you have a wonderful harmless preservative that slowly builds up.  If I take one out to a show I simply clean off the tinwork and leave the rest dirty and preserved, then respray the tinwork when I get back home.  As you will know when you have a lot of tracors and implements its a hell of amjob keeping up with them and this simple procedure takes all the work out of the job.  Marvellous for old timers.

As I said, I spray them twice a year - generally autumn and spring.  If I have visitors then if I have time I will just rub the tinwork down and you have a nice fresh looking tractor to show.

Never seen 32 in wheels on a Challenger

John