Colin McNickle At Large

Weekend essay: The Great Tractor Hunt

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JONES MOUNTAIN, W.Va.

The hunt has begun: Jones Mountain is in need of a tractor.

Oh, there’s an old and sturdy John Deere garden tractor that’s kept the grasses cut for more than a decade atop this Appalachian Mountain foothill. And it has done its job faithfully and well and with only a modicum of maintenance each year.

But there soon will be a bit of old field to plow anew for crops not planted here over several generations. To till soil left fallow for so long will be particularly pleasing to the nose; a sturdy tractor is a must to do justice to this place’s farming history.

And then there’s a woods to thin — not only to build a cache of seasoned firewood for a coming fireplace but to help the more mature trees in that slice of this Mountain State forest be the most majestic they can be.

For a larger tractor surely will come in handy to drag the already fallen timber to a clearing to cut and stack what’s salvageable or to cut, pile and burn the woods’ dregs.

And, oh, the tractor options available and the choices to be made.

On my behalf, brother Shannon is on the hunt for a good used – though refurbished – tractor. He speaks highly of a shop over the river and through the Eastern Ohio woods along a winding road of our youth that has treated him well over the years.  The tractor shop that is, not the road.

But I keep wondering if buying new is the better option, fully knowing what I’m getting – not inheriting someone else’s problem – and the promise of a warranty.

Then you start reading the commentaries online about new tractors delivered with factory-made problems. Leaking gas lines near manifolds. Crimped hydraulic lines. Substandard alternators that don’t keep batteries charged. Attachments that require a contortionist with Goliath strength to install and remove. And on and on and on. Sigh.

That said, tractors, whether new or used, typically are in the same category as sports cars and boats. That is, it seems as if they were designed and built to be worked on – all the time.

Or as local sometimes radio personality and gentleman farmer Scott Paulsen put it a few years ago: “As anyone who owns farm machinery will tell you, the first rule of ownership is that it breaks. The second rule is that whatever part you need is on back-order and will be here in two weeks.”

As Scott also noted: “Attached to most tractors … is a small metal box. When the tractor is new, you will find nothing inside that box, leading many to wonder why it’s there.

“However, soon after the tractor arrives home with its new owner, that person will fill the small metal box with all manner of replacement parts.”

Oh, the joys to come. But let The Great Tractor Hunt continue unabated. For once the back of this winter is broken, there soon will be land to plow, a woods to thin, an owner’s manual to decipher and, of course, parts to order.

Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

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Colin McNickle
Colin McNickle

Colin received his B.G.S. from Ohio University. The 40-year journalism veteran joined the Institute in October 2016. That followed a 22-year career with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 18 as director of editorial pages for Trib Total Media. Prior that, Colin had a long and varied career in media — from radio, newspapers and magazines, to United Press International and The Associated Press.

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