Tractor & Machinery Magazine DB 1190 : 532 HOURS Back Issue

We all like a nice surprise, so when our man went to Norfolk to look at someone’s collection of plant and was told in casual conversation that there was a tractor in the shed he might be interested in because it had only done some 500 hours work in 30 years, he was delighted. You can read all about his discovery on page 20 but it makes you wonder just how many other low-hours tractors
there are sitting in sheds awaiting their moment in the spotlight (not to mention the daylight). You know what I’m going to ask, but I’ll pose the question anyway. Have you got such a machine? If you have, let me know. It would be interesting to fi nd the tractor in Great Britain (or anywhere else we have readers for that matter) that has averaged the lowest number of working hours each year over its lifetime. This month’s contender, as you will see, has managed 17.3 hours of work a year. Can your tractor beat that? Our major feature this month is all about crawlers. Not so often seen in preservation as their wheeled compatriots (for reasons of transportation apart from anything else) their weight distribution and ground grip would seem to make them the logical field workers. Somehow it never quite happened on a large scale, but development continues. Our feature starts on page 23. Back on wheels, we track down an elegant collection of John Deere’s finest, find an MF 185 that could have been basking in the African sunshine but instead is still working in northern England, get thoroughly soaked at the British National Ploughing Championships, offer some back-to-basics advice on battery care as many tractors go into storage for the wintry months and look at what abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board might mean. It’s a very mixed bag this month – well, we all like surprises. Keep in touch