766 Man

My guess is that pears are a little more reliable in the north versus cherries, apples, and most other fruit trees. It mattered more back in the days when a family had to live off of the land versus going to the store. Pears are pretty good chilled and bowled in their own juice.

Selling out the future? If grandpa had that kind of opportunity to sell his farm decades ago how many here would be farming today?

So says what I have read in the past few minutes but that was not always the case. If it were then nobody would have had the 3 pt hitch before the late 1950's because Harry Ferguson or Henry Ford would have never agreed to have a competitor copy it.

Most industrial patents are good for 7 years. A patent holder can apply for a renewal but my understanding is that very seldom happens. The only wide spread exception is health and medicine so there is incentive for new products. The first fast hitch tractor may have come out in 1953 but the hitch was most likely patented years ahead of its release meaning the patent clock was already ticking.

Nearly all 12 row planters would have been semi-integral meaning the implement had wheels to assist in the lifting. The same with 6,7, or more bottom plows. Most larger equipment today is pulled off of the drawbar with nearly all the weight carried on the implement's own wheels.

Honestly, it sounds like a story. A patent is only good for 7 years. After that anybody is free to copy another manufacturer's design. By the mid-1950's everybody was using the 3 pt hitch that cared to do so. Not even a thank you note to ole Harry Ferguson. As to the roll-a-matic NFE it may not seem like a big deal on table top flat ground with no rocks but it was a nice feature to have otherwise.

When side delivery rakes were still a big thing 40 plus years ago they would bring a thousand plus dollars. Then they got down to 200-300 dollars 10 years ago but with inflation and the Amish wanting them they are around 700-800 dollars currently for a good field ready unit.

Things such as pocket calculators and advancements in cordless communication devices came out of the Apollo Program. I want to say as of around 1980 a return of 10-12 dollars to the general economy from every dollar spent on the Apollo Program was made.

I've been fortunate in that food has been my drug. That good food helps to relax myself. Alcohol has been a real issue in my mother's family and I am thankful that it never took up shop in my life.

I had one of those and like a dumb kid I let it get run over. I cried at the time but was a good lesson in taking care of things.

Lying about going to the moon would have been the propaganda coup of the century for the Soviets and you know they would have broadcast it from every medium that was under their control. Seems to me that money was offered into the millions for anybody connected in a very meaningful way with NASA to refute the Apollo missions. No takers.

Let me appeal to the cynic in you. If we really did not go to the moon do you really believe that the 10,000 plus people involved in the Apollo Program could keep that a secret for what is now decades? Every last person? The contracting for components and services reached into many communities including here in the Greater Rochester, NY area so its not like everybody involved was corralled into a tight community for Big Brother to watch them all. As to other countries having their own space program 99 percent never had close to the money needed to do so.

I only remember one as a kid and it was over 25 miles away. I also remember one 4156 just outside of Geneva, NY. Saw it mostly pulling around trailers in the field loading cabbage. Seemed like it was wet at least there every year during the 1970's.

The one I got as a toy in 1968 had a white box. I wish that I took better care of my toys. Maybe I will check online for one.

The world has gone completely mad.