Our IH district office was conducting a field day near Janesville, Wis. Farmers were invited to drive a new line of tractors. One was a loader tractor.

As the day ended, we started moving the equipment to the road to be trucked out. One of our crew was driving the loader tractor from the far end, traveling too fast. He was standing up.

The loader bucket was not high enough. It was close to the ground, and the bucket was pitched down. Suddenly the tractor bounced from a rough spot, and the bucket buried into the ground. The tractor was brought to a halt, and he was thrown forward, stomach into the steering wheel.

By the time he shut off the engine he was barely able to dismount. He was bent over on the ground when we got to him, and couldn’t talk.

We loaded him in a station wagon and took him to the hospital. He had serious injuries and was bedridden for days. It was a red flag for all of us. Keep the loader raised, and slow down. It could have killed him.

Deer Stops Deere?

I was driving a ton and a half flatbed and pulling a trailer. It was after dark in Northern Wisconsin and our IH team was conducting farmer field demonstrations at dealerships every day. We were en route to the next one.

Suddenly I was in a white cloud of steam and couldn’t see a thing. I stopped as fast as I could and looked at steam coming out of the radiator. There was a hole in the grille with a deer leg in it, and when I opened the hood the leg had penetrated the radiator. Hence the steam.

Two crew members had been following me, and they ran up to see what was happening. We walked back down the road and found a dead deer with a missing leg. I had not seen him as he jumped in front of the truck.

We parked the truck and found a motel. The next morning, we located a replacement radiator, installed it and arrived at the demonstration site on time.

Here’s the irony of this story, which our dealers joked about for years. The purpose of the daily demonstrations was to give farmers a chance to compare two tractors: our Farmall 460 and the newly introduced JD 3010.

Our district had purchased a 3010 for these field days. The dealers would provide the 460 and we would bring the 3010 for the invited farmers to have lunch and compare the two. What I was hauling on the trailer that night was the Deere 3010. 

At that day’s event the local dealer made an announcement - EVEN A DEER CAN STOP A DEERE!

I didn’t hear the end of that for many years.

Case Tractors Painted Red

On Nov. 26, 1984, Tenneco (owner of JI Case) announced their purchase of International Harvester Farm Equipment Division. At a dealer meeting which I attended soon after, Tenneco management divulged the color for the new group:  IH red.

Immediately after that, IH dealers (and undoubtedly Case dealers) were offered large discounts on the stock of remaining Case cream-colored tractors. I bought several for our two dealerships.

The price attracted farmers in our area, and we sold them quickly. The interesting twist in this story is that all but one of the buyers wanted these tractors painted red. They thought the tractors would have a higher trade-in value later. (I’ve never known whether that was true or not).

The Gambler In Our Midst

Today there are fewer farmers than ever before, because of the huge investment required. At the same time our population has grown to the point where each farmer must feed more people than ever before.

How has the American farmer kept up with the increased demand? By producing more per acre. On about the same number of acres, the productivity has been amazing.

Our American farmers have accomplished these increases even though they have no control over prices received. Yet they pay more every year for machinery, fertilizer and all the other inputs.

On top of that the farmer is at the mercy of the weather. A wet spring forcing late planting can reduce the crop. A drought can do as much or more damage.

So where do America’s big stakes gamblers live? Not Las Vegas but right here in our countryside. They call themselves farmers, and they are feeding us better than any country in the world. At the same time, they overproduce enough to ship a big percentage of our crop to the rest of the world, to help balance our trade.

Next time you buy a loaf of bread it might help to know the farmers have no control over the price he gets for the wheat in that bread. They will keep on being a laborer, accountant, mathematician, agronomist and business manager, even though his return on investment is the lowest in any industry. He’s the best food-producing machine ever invented.

Paul Wallem was raised on an Illinois dairy farm. He spent 13 years with corporate IH in domestic and foreign assignments, He resigned to own and operate two IH dealerships. He is the author of THE BREAKUP of IH and SUCCESSES & INDUSTRY FIRSTS of IH. See all his books on www.PaulWallem.com.