</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I'm in the process of buying 10 acres in Franklin County NY. mostly feilds.
I'll be needing a machine to cut grass, haul and split firewood, and plow snow on a drivway that about a 1/8 of a mile long.
I thought I would check with you guys on what I should be looking at so far I'm thinking either the
L3430 or the
L3830 with a front end loader.
Am I on the right track ? what kind of prices am I looking at ?)</font>
As you are a first time buyer, I would strongly recommend a few things. First, only buy from a quality dealership. Brand of tractor is less important than a good service department to a new buyer. You want factory trained service people, you want a dealer that has a good parts inventory, and preferably a dealer that has mobile service so they can do the easy stuff at your property. The dealers that I consider to be quality dealers are the guys who have been in the community for about a generation, or two, they have been servicing the farmers around your area and are fixtures in your community. They are the guys who are not in the business for a fast buck, they have a big investment in their parts department and carry parts for tractors that have been in the fields for 20, 30 or 40 years. The service bays are clean but busy, and they have several service bays with several techs who didn't just get out of "lawnmower repair school" but actually know how to work on a diesel engine, they have been to the factory certification classes, and know the farmers on a first name basis.
Second, for a new buyer I'd be seriously looking at a HST transmission. A hydrostatic transmission will make the tractor much easier to operate, especially if you are mowing around you wife's prized rose bushes. Front loader work is also more efficiently accomplished with a hydro transmission.
For Grass Cutting there are a couple questions I would ask, first are you looking to rough cut a field or are you looking to mow the lawn? Or both? And how much of an area would you be mowing for each of those tasks? This is an area where HP is a good thing, the more PTO horsepower you have the bigger the mower deck. A 6' or 7' mower deck (finish mower) would work nicely for you. I prefer strongly the MID Mount Mowers, especially on a tractor with HST, especially for new operators, when we are talking about FINSIH mowing the lawn. They do not "gator tail" and you won't accidently knock down your fence, mow your flowers, or smash your deck supports very easily with a MMM. Now I will say that a MMM is harder to remove and install, so if you are spending A LOT of time in the woods breaking trails or doing rough work on rough ground, then a Rear Finish Mower (RFM) is a better choice because you can remove it easier (they are often cheaper than MMMs too, but my brand of choice in RFM is Befco and they are expensive and worth every penny of their price). So I would agree with Egon that HP is a priority for you due to the issue of mowing, mower decks use HP more than things like Front End Loaders.
I don't know what your snowfall is like, but if you get frequent snows over 6" then forget about plowing and consider a SNOW BLOWER. You can pretty effectively plow snow up to about 6" but if you get much deeper then you'll probably end up going out mid-snowfall to plow and then again after the snow to do it again. With a blower you can go out and get the whole thing done in less time and an 18" snowfall won't even clog up a good blower.
Any tractor of any brand can haul a load of firewood in the bucket. Firewood is not terribly heavy so loader capacity won't be much of a consideration.
I think a 32 to 35 hp tractor with HST and a decent FEL would serve your purpose very well. Make sure you prioritize your work tasks. Buy the tractor that best suits your LONG term useage.
