1937 Farmall F-20

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My grandfather Kenneth Nairn, who went by Kenny among people who knew him well, farmed a 40 acre parcel that had been in the family since the government deeded the land to the ancestors (the Goodenows�) in the 1847. After farming that 40 and additonal 280 acres with a team of horses (Bob and Queen) be probably came to the conlcusion that motorized farming was the wave of the future and the answer to an aching back. Interestingly, he ordered the tractor from the Millwrights� McCormick Deering dealership with pneumatic tires. The salesman tried to talk him out of the tires. It caused quite a stir when the tractor arrived at the dealership and my grandfather took quite a ribbing from other farmers for purchasing a tractor with rubber tires. Nobody else in the county expected the pneumatic tires to hold up to rigors of farming. Other farmers said the tires wouldn�t handle row crops. Some even thought the tires would spin under load. He quietly gloated when all the neighbor�s tractors were at the welding shop the next season having their metal rims replaced with pneumatic tires. Those same Goodrich Silvertown tires were still on the tractor when he gave the F-20 to me in the early seventies. Submitted by Jeff Lubben, from MI