Regulars
3 Welcome
11 News
All the latest news of what’s going on in the world of tractors and farming heritage.
69 Tractor Talk
Your views and product reviews.
72 Model World
This month Henry Smith takes a nostalgic look back at farm related Christmas presents of the 1950s.
77 What, no engine?
Our farming heritage goes way back beyond the advent of the tractor, so if you want to collect the real old stuff then hand tools are where it’s at.
82 Catching the drift
Sheep have provided Polly Pullar with a supply of entertainment from a very early age; here are a few of her favourite moments.
86 Taking stock for the new year
While forced to take it easier for a while, Graham Hampstead has time to take a look at all those little jobs that need attending to.
90 Fauna Scotica – Animals and People in Scotland
Polly Pullar talks about her latest project which has consumed the past two years and been a serious test due to the diversity of subject matter.
Marketplace
98 Tractor Events
This time we feature the ever popular Tracks Across the Field event and the Scottish Ploughing Championships in which English competitors featured highly.
102 Sales & Marketplace
We review the Cheffins Vintage Sale at Sutton, Cambridgeshire, where proceedings on the vintage tractor front were almost overshadowed by the sale of a Land Rover once owned by Sir Winston Churchill.
120 Farming Focus: Andrew Meikle’s threshing machine
Scotland has produced many inventive minds which have given us technological advances in many different fields throughout the centuries. One was Andrew Meikle who gave us the first successful example of a mechanical threshing machine.
Your tractors
6 The Challenger from the red corner
Among the many fine tractors on show at the Bedfordshire Steam & Country Fayre last September was a splendid 1938 Massey-Harris Challenger; Gordon Carson talks about its restoration.
16 Look how we’ve grown!
Pete Kelly reports from this year’s 10th anniversary Newark Vintage Tractor & Heritage Show – the biggest yet.
22 Some downsize!
Why, after driving giant forestry tractors for many years, has Derrick English settled on something just a bit smaller for his retirement?
26 The Universal scheme of things
Coincidences often defy any attempt at explanation, although Alistair Towler was quite happy to simply reflect on his good fortune when he happened to come across a Nuffield Universal Four that he hadn’t seen for 20 years.
30 Club Focus: Looking for adventure
A chance remark at a 60th birthday party led to a group of intrepid tractor drivers raising a serious amount of money for charity.
34 Two weekends in Beds
The third weekend after the August Bank Holiday means it’s time for the Bedfordshire Steam & Country Fayre and the Haynes Working Rally – two events held in Bedfordshire about six miles apart.
38 True colours revealed
Around 13,000 David Brown 900s like Trevor Mawson’s were made with this colour scheme in hunting pink and French light blue. We find out more.
In the workshop
92 When opposites attract
When John Lamb contacted Ben Phillips regarding his Ferguson FF30GV he just knew that this project was going to be a little different.
Farming heritage
42 A combined harvester, or is it?
Much has been written on the small tool carriers built by companies such as David Brown, Allis-Chalmers and Fendt, but what about the option from Claas.
45 Saunderson ‘Universal’ G
This tractor is from one of the earliest pioneers of agricultural tractor development in Britain, Herbert Percy Saunderson.
47 The history of Valtra: part 2
In just one decade Valmet had made some remarkable progress. By the early 1960s not only were its tractors deservedly making their mark in the domestic market in Finland but the company had also established a modern production facility in Brazil.
51 Nelson’s flagship
There are only two Nelson tractors left in the world, now one has recently arrived in the UK and is in the hands of a Cambridgeshire collector.
56 Dan Albone – cyclist, inventor & manufacturer
A new, comprehensive work by Ray Miller and Lee Irvine, published by the John Pinkerton Memorial Publishing Fund, has recently been released showcasing the remarkable work of Dan Albone.
58 The Tractor Power Wars
In the third part of this series, tractor and implement manufacturers continue their process of innovation during the early 1960s to drive agriculture forward into a new age, as seen through the pages of Farming Mechanisation.
62 Tractor Gallery
Ross Bartlett features this time at the Tracks Across the Field event held during August 2012 with his Minneapolis-Moline UTS, an early example dating from 1939.
65 Tractor Archive
More farming memories depicted through the pages of implement and agricultural brochures of the day.
