What age did you start driving tractors?

[bdeboer]

Dad put me On the B riding around the yard. Dad had me out on the be one day and my grandparents on my Moms side were at te house. Broke grandmas heart seeing me on a tractor. She wanted me to be a doctor or lawyer.

:laughing: Thanks for sharing that

 

[CompactTractorFan]

Started on the BX25 at age 15. :thumbsup:

 

[Cleburne]

I was 12 when I started helping my dad on our farm.

 

[ArtMech]

My first touch to the ag machine was in 1969, when I was 11. My uncle allowed me to drive a combine for a while (soviet one Don). But I perfectly remember an impression - looked like the ground turns around me, not the machine moves. :confused2::laughing:
Tractors - don't remember exactly.

 

[cisco]

Four. My dad would line up the tractor at the edge of a field for a straight sweep across such with a disc or whatever, and I would hold the steering wheel straight until I got to the other end of the field (Ford 4N throttle was somehow set for a very slow speed, and it was in ? 2nd gear - I'm fuzzy on how he did it), when he would climb back on and turn the tractor around for the next row sweep. What he did while I was driving depended on what we were doing - cutting hay or whatever, and whether a truck needed to be alongside for what was coming out of the implement the tractor was pulling.
Got some black and white pictures of the above, and I agree with my wife - I'd never do that with a son, or grandson, of mine - too darn dangerous.....but I sure enjoyed it when I was real young. By the time I was really capable of handling a tractor, it'd gone from fun to a chore.

 

[Creamer]

I remember when my Dad hired a custom combine crew with 5 new JD 105s, diesel hydros. I was five and one of the guys let me steer one part of the way through the field. Big, big day in this little boys life!

 

[showcattle]

Lawn tractors at 6, augered postholes with an 8N at 10, then at about age 12 raking hay with my cousin's Ford 861, and our Allis Chalmers WD.

 

[kootch88]

I grew up between two farms, one being a vegatable farmer and the other did potatos and strawberries. Every Spring we would drag a screen over the field and collect rocks that came up with the frost with the Farmall H. Mr. Chase would allow each of us to drive the tractor. This started around 8 years old, but I was so short I had to stand up to drive and not tall enough to get the clutch to disengage so he would do it for me and jump off.

On other side was also an unrelated Chase and he allowed us to drive his 10 speed IH flatbed truck in the fields while we collected the squash. He'd put a crate with a pillow on the seat so we had something to lean against as we went a half mile an hour through the field. He also had a Deere which sounded like it turned over at about 20 RPM's. He never let us drive his tractors.

 

[newbury]

My dad was a machinist at IBM so I didn't start driving tractors until I was "hired out" at about 13 or 14. Seemed easier than snowmobiles.

 

[dapper]

Like others, I was about 5 or 6 when I started straight line driving for Dad and Gramps while they threw bales and stacked. Had to stand on the clutch of the 8n and let it roll to stop at the end of the field. Could keep her goin straight, but not big enough to turn her. Dad would run around and turn it and line it up for the next row, and off we would go again. Wasn't allowed to drive across the ditch until MUCH later. HA! Would drive the 53 Ford PU in second gear to pull the bean wagon to the mill behind Dad with the tractor & wagons by 7. Man was I king of the hill on that 8n though..... Everyone I knew was doing the same thing about then so it didn't seem out of place for the time. Sounds like it was much more common then than now. Been "tractorun" ever since. Bout 55 yrs now, and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. :thumbsup: Not sure the 7yr old's I know now would be able to put down their cell phones long enough to do this now. :laughing: