growers@sgcotton.com.au Roger Tomkins - Greenmount Press

The joys (or otherwise) of
tractor driving!
■ By Ian M. Johnston
Tractor driving ain’t what it used to be! Stating the
obvious? Certainly.
But let’s be honest. Climbing up into the cloistered confines
of a modern tractor, adjusting the rake of the luxuriously
upholstered arm chair, selecting the filtered air-conditioned
temperature of choice, swivelling the armrest control consul to
the most comfortable position, slipping an Elton John CD into the
quad-speaker player, feeding the data into the satellite guidance
system and then pushing the engine start button – can hardly be
termed rugged, dirt under the finger nails, hard farm yakker.
While I certainly rejoice that this is the lot of today’s tractor
drivers, and I am not for a moment suggesting a farmer is not
entitled to such modernity and comfort of advanced tractor
design whilst enduring long hours at the controls, I do however
confess to harbouring just a wee bit of envy.
Possibly such fallacious thoughts are because during my
farming days, out on the broad black soil plains of the Walgett
Shire, our first tractors consisted of a Chamberlain Super 90, a
Canadian Massey Ferguson also labelled a Super 90, an ageing
Kero fuelled Case LA, a Lanz Bulldog, a Fiat dozer and a Massey
Ferguson loader/backhoe.
The Chamberlain
The Chamberlain Super 90 was our pride and joy. It was
considered a powerful muscle machine with its GM supercharged
two stroke diesel and nine speed gearbox. Being the boss
cocky, it was appropriate that this was the machine I drove. But
subjected to endless 14 hour days, bouncing around in the open
cockpit and being exposed to the torturous howling of the big
two stroke diesel, is the reason that today I suffer from stiff joints
The Chamberlain Super 90. This is one of five of these
magnificent Chamberlains owned by the author and used
on his different properties. The straight front axle indicates
it is a Series 2 Super 90 with the higher performance G.M.
supercharged two stroke three cylinder diesel engine. The
Super 90 is considered by collectors as being the ultimate
Chamberlain! (Photo M Daw)
CLASSIC TRACTOR TALES
and am more than half deaf. The wearing of ear muffs would
have been considered sissy in the extreme, back in these ‘good
old days’.
Potentially even more damaging to my health than the
constant jarring and the noise factor – was the dust! While
working the black soil paddocks I was constantly enveloped in a
cloud of fine powdery black dust. It caked in my ears, nose and
throat. The only escape was if there was a decent crosswind.
Even the engine air cleaner cartridge of the Chamberlain had to
be removed and blown through with compressed air each day.
Of course every farmer will appreciate the monotony we each
experience when obliged to spend what seems like a lifetime,
sitting in a tractor, hour after long hour, driving round and round
or back and forward in a paddock which stretches endlessly
towards the distant horizon. One tends to almost hibernate
behind the wheel and enter a sort of dream world. But for me,
there were two regular occurrences which were guaranteed to
jolt me back into the real world.
The first was if I spotted a wriggling red belly black, or a
brown, or better still a king brown (snakes to those uninitiated
in such things) desperately trying to get out of the path of the
22 disc plough. Without apologies to my conservation friends,
I can state categorically that I hate snakes! For the record I also
hate rats and, possibly to a lesser degree, frogs. But I deviate.
Back to the snakes. I took great delight in pouring on the coals
and careering off in hot pursuit of the loathsome creature, until
finally the sharp plough disks chopped the thing into dozens of
obscene wriggling sausages. I then of course had to navigate
back to the furrow and sedately carry on, but greatly cheered by
my achievement.
The other experience that occurred not infrequently when
working a paddock, was when Jim (my next door neighbour)
was aloft in his Stuka divebomber (or whatever) and spied me
The Chamberlain Super 90 shown pulling a 22 disc plough,
which it handled with ease. It consumed a mere 1.5 gallons
of diesel per hour. (Photo M Daw)
August–September 2012 The Australian Cottongrower — 49