Top 10 worst ever farm inventions.

[Two Tone]

Howard big balers... Could never see why you'd want one unless you has some dodgy hay to bale, especially as round balers were on the up... Awkward to bale, handle, haul, stack, store... Am I missing something?

Found this picture of one

And some other heaps of crap too

 

[Right-arm fast]

Found this picture of one
View attachment 638462
And some other heaps of crap too
View attachment 638464
View attachment 638466
View attachment 638468

I love that hedgecutter.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Seeing the picture of that lovely Howard baler on here - surely the worst farm invention was the bale string with two knots per string?

Nothing about the extra knot that I like.

 

[hendrebc]

Seeing the picture of that lovely Howard baler on here - surely the worst farm invention was the bale string with two knots per string?

Nothing about the extra knot that I like.

It gives you something decent to grip to when your pulling the strings off and the other knot gets stuck

 

[Dman2]

Am i allowed to add sheep to this thread?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It gives you something decent to grip to when your pulling the strings off and the other knot gets stuck

Those old Howard strings kept our farm together, good length on one of them.
The BigBaler paled in comparison to those 9 yard long strings then someone had the bright idea that square bales needed half the length and twice the knottage

 

[chickens and wheat]

thats a howard mk1. mk2 was slightly more robust and had bigger sting boxes.
the string boxes are still in my shed they make a decent oil storage locker

 

[Goweresque]

I love that hedgecutter.

Do you want one??? I've got one sat in my yard. Complete, was barn stored for about 30 years, but has been sat outside for the last few years since I ran out of space to keep it under cover. Free to good home!!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

thats a howard mk1. mk2 was slightly more robust and had bigger sting boxes.
the string boxes are still in my shed they make a decent oil storage locker

The big crank assembly makes a great earth system for a leccy fence energiser too

 

[Tonym]

Do you want one??? I've got one sat in my yard. Complete, was barn stored for about 30 years, but has been sat outside for the last few years since I ran out of space to keep it under cover. Free to good home!!View attachment 638514

That is the delux model with the hinge in the boom.
Standard version with the solid boom was even worse as the higher you topped a hedge the nearer you had to drive to it. At full height you had to be in the hedge bottom.

 

[Two Tone]

Do you want one??? I've got one sat in my yard. Complete, was barn stored for about 30 years, but has been sat outside for the last few years since I ran out of space to keep it under cover. Free to good home!!View attachment 638514

At least your one bends half way along the arm so that you don't to drive the tractor exactly at the right distance from the hedge.

 

[Roy_H]

thats a howard mk1. mk2 was slightly more robust and had bigger sting boxes.
the string boxes are still in my shed they make a decent oil storage locker

Much as I cursed it and it's notorious knotting problems I have to say I have to remember in those far off days. what time and effort it actually saved us getting baled up and led off so quickly. Compared to how it used to be. Oh the joys of stacking ( What seemed like millions of little ) bales in the loft of Dutch barn stopping only to wipe the sweat (and occasionally blood when your forehead came into collision with a steel roof bar) from your brow. It was bloody hard work !!! I can remember dad sitting in the tractor cab smiling at me as I loaded those first big' bread loaves' onto the trailer instead of him having to be on top of the load itself stacking (little) bales brought up the trailer by the Perry loader. You have to remember that in The early 1970's there were no such things as 'Hesston' type balers and the very first big round balers that arrived on the scene ( e.g. Farmhand-Vermeer., IH 241 Bigroll) were pretty awful anyway. It must have been the equivalent of my forebears parking the old binder in the nettles and getting the new combine out!

 

[nick...]

My dad allways loved his fisher humphries hedge cutter.got to the flails allways done a good job.pity you cant say the same about the rest
Nick...

 

[Selectamatic]

My dad allways loved his fisher humphries hedge cutter.got to the flails allways done a good job.pity you cant say the same about the rest
Nick...

True, the flails were brilliant on a single years growth. Our's was repaired and welded all over the place, truly a crappy thing.

 

[glasshouse]

Much as I cursed it and it's notorious knotting problems I have to say I have to remember in those far off days. what time and effort it actually saved us getting baled up and led off so quickly. Compared to how it used to be. Oh the joys of stacking ( What seemed like millions of little ) bales in the loft of Dutch barn stopping only to wipe the sweat (and occasionally blood when your forehead came into collision with a steel roof bar) from your brow. It was bloody hard work !!! I can remember dad sitting in the tractor cab smiling at me as I loaded those first big' bread loaves' onto the trailer instead of him having to be on top of the load itself stacking (little) bales brought up the trailer by the Perry loader. You have to remember that in The early 1970's there were no such things as 'Hesston' type balers and the very first big round balers that arrived on the scene ( e.g. Farmhand-Vermeer., IH 241 Bigroll) were pretty awful anyway. It must have been the equivalent of my forebears parking the old binder in the nettles and getting the new combine out!

Well said
The ih 241 round baler was a total revolution,
We maybe got the first one in scotland.
They sat out for a fortnight after baling no prob. What a doddle it was, 650kg each

 

[chickens and wheat]

howard tailgate has lived at back of scrapheap for years,last summer I retrieved it land made a cable drum holder took 10 mins to convert but made unwinding 1.5 tonnes of cable a doddle

 

[Exfarmer]

My dad allways loved his fisher humphries hedge cutter.got to the flails allways done a good job.pity you cant say the same about the rest
Nick...

The flail machine was a huge step up from there slasher head we used in the 70's but some of the hedges had not been cut for 50 years or more and were 30 foot wide. What a mess they looked after we had cut stuff down from 20 foot high as well, some we chopped down to ground level and let reshoot that came well at the end of the day. Seem to tremember we spent all autumn clearing up brash but we had wonderful; bonfires

 

[nick...]

Can remember my dad having a McConnell swing over finger bar hedge cutter.that was crap too.knife kept stalling and would not cut anything thicker than about half an inch and then had lots of clearing up and burning to do.probably a revelation at the time as were flail mowers
Nick...

 

[simmy_bull]

Am i allowed to add sheep to this thread?

Definitely.

I’ve brought mine into a shed and I’m having the usual battle feeding them. Why do they insist on following you round the shed trampling the food you’ve put down instead of stopping and putting there heads down

 

[Suffolk Serf]

A chap near us had a Bonhill combine (Forschritt) made in East Germany and in the first season he had to replace ALL the drive belts as they were such poor quality

Bonhill Forschritt weren't all bad. They came out with a 10 tonne muck spreader when most people were paddling about with relatively small rotaspreaders. That was a quantum leap forward, even if the bed chains were a constant headache.