ALL ABOUT TRACTORS BY PAUL WALLEM Illinois farmer Larry, 75, is retiring as his son Grant takes over. Larry’s dad was one of our dealership’s best customers during the 1970s and 1980s. He typically rented 1,800 acres and was one of our first farmers to buy a four-wheel-drive tractor and eight-row planter. In the years since Larry farmed with his dad and then took over, their acreage fluctuated from 1,800 to 2,800 acres. Competition for rental land has increased in recent years, and in the last few years, their acreage has stabilized at 1,400 acres. Is there a right number for the most profit? The family has not purchased land over the years, so the rental increases have become more significant. Given the constant variation of crop prices, fertilizer, seed costs, etc., it is difficult to know how many acres are the correct number to rent each year. Grant is choosing to stay close to 1,400, and his situation is better than many others because he has a morning job in a nearby town, which allows him to take time off during busy seasons. Machinery expenses become an even larger challenge, however. They haven’t tried to keep the newest equipment, yet charges from the dealership to inspect and repair the combine, for example, have become a significant expense. How long should they keep repairing this equipment annually instead of trading? That becomes one of the most challenging questions each year. With no land ownership, the rental cost makes it harder every year to make a profit. In Grant’s case, the outside job helps greatly. Larry continues to help during busy seasons, so they see no need to trade up for autonomous equipment in the near future. However, as profit margins erode, the number of acres for this family will constantly be part of annual planning, and they are not alone. Year-around comfort In 1965, a Minnesota farmer tired of freezing while on his tractor. He built a cab for protection. It significantly improved his life. He built two more and took them to the 1966 Minnesota State Fair. He sold 35! That November, he rented a shop, hired a crew, and built 700 within six months. His name was Merton Anderson. He created Year-Around Cab Co. Heritage Iron Magazine told his story in its September/October 2022 issue. Part of this column draws from that. My IH dealership started buying Year-Around cabs in 1962. My former parts manager recently told me that during his first year with our dealership, he was in our shop installing these new cabs and hooking up the wiring, heater, and air conditioners. We were ordering five cabs at a time and selling them quickly. Comfort in Boone County, Ill., had moved from luxury to necessity. Our next-door neighbor was the John Deere dealer. He was doing the same thing. The cab company painted each cab with our tractor colors. They did that for every dealer. They also delivered the cabs with their own trucks, and some loads arrived half red for us and half green for our neighbor. An important feature the Year-Around cabs provided was their patented tilt-away accessibility, providing easy access for service. It set them apart from later competitors. Year-Around Cab Co. then set up assembly-line production and expanded to a building on 4.5 acres. By the mid-seventies, they were building 43 cabs a day and were still weeks behind orders. By then, tractor manufacturers had seen the market demand, and by the early eighties, they had started offering cabs from their production lines. Year-Around produced their last cab in 1989, after building over 500,000. Our dealership kept installing them on older customer tractors up to 1986. It took a Minnesota farmer to provide comfort for our Illinois farmers. Paul Wallem was raised on an Illinois dairy farm. He spent 13 years with corporate IH on domestic and foreign assignments. He resigned to own and operate two IH dealerships. He is the author of THE BREAKUP of IH and SUCCESSES and INDUSTRY FIRSTS of IH. See all his books on www.PaulWallem.com. Email your comments to pwallem@aol.com |
