At the dairy farm in Michigan south of Lansing, we had hills and one of those was right at the drive way that going downhill passed the milkhouse, the silos, the barnyard gate, and then went to the fields. For the annual silo fill, the course was uphill and steep. We had a Farmall 300 (upgraded basic Farmall M) to pull the heavy loads of silage up the hill and position em where the back wagon gate could be opened and the silage picked out to the loader for the blower. The blower was powered by a WD-45 then (a diesel) and easily could handle whatever amount of silage was picked into the loader and into the blower. The problem was getting the load of silage up the hill, holding it, and letting it back down to where it could be picked off into the loader for the silage blower. Out of control, a wagon load of silage would damage equipment, fences, water tanks and all other stuff in the path of its downhill strike. The neighbor's D-14, although great for plowing and a rear mount disk, did not have the weight for using its horse power to the same advantage on the hill. The D-14 would simply spin its tires while going up the hill and there was nothing the neighbor could do. It could not even hold the load on the hill since the loaded silage wagon would just drag the tractor and wagon back down the hill. The point here is weight as it allows you to apply the horse power to the ground. As a side note, the neighbor's D14 had good brakes, but they couldn't hold on a hill due to lack of weight. The Farmall 300, had marginal brakes, but lots of weight. When I drove the silage wagons up the hill, I adjusted the speed to carry the load up the hill, to just past the loader where the idea was that the load would stall, stayed off the brakes until the load was in the right position, applied the brakes, and then settled the load back about one foot to the loader for the blower. Under these conditions, the tractor and wagon load was under control, given the horsepower and braking control. Ken Hilliard, ca, entered 2002-12-06
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