My career in farm equipment began as the assistant chief engineer with a major shortline manufacturer in 1966. I grew up on a small farm and had other family members who were farming much larger farms, so I felt right at home in the industry.

It did not take long for me to understand that the best job in the company was calling on farm equipment dealers, and that is where I wanted to be. My employer’s sales force was highly paid at the time, and those territories rarely came open. When they did, the son of the current sales representative would usually step into that position. If I expected to become a salesman of farm equipment, I would have to find another company with which to work, even though I had been with my employer for more than 3 years.

In late summer of 1970, I accepted the position of field sales manager for Servis Equipment Company, a manufacturer of rotary cutters and landscaping equipment. I found myself traveling in the states of Tennessee and Kentucky. The sales manager of Servis Equipment Company was Layton Glass — no relation that we could find, but that had to be the only reason that I got the job because I had absolutely no experience in sales to dealers at the time.

Calling on farm equipment dealers was a pleasure, and that was my first contact with Farm Equipment magazine. I would see them in the various dealerships and soon had my own copy arriving monthly. I studied it each night in the motel to begin my education in the retail farm equipment industry.

Even in 1970, we were aware that the farm equipment business was a mature industry. By that time, the number of U.S. farmers was declining annually, and the number of farms declined along with them, with the exception of a slight increase from 1974 to 1978. The vast majority of those farms were classified as small farms, usually 200 acres or less, and none of these small farms produced enough income for farmers to rely on their farm production to meet their total annual expenses.

By 1974, there were 2,314,000 farms in the U.S., and the majority of those were small farms with an average size of 440 acres each, which is very comparable to today’s average farm size.

There were eleven major tractor manufacturers at that time: John Deere, International Harvester, Case, Ford, Massey Ferguson, White, Oliver, Minneapolis Moline, Allis Chalmers, Deutz and David Brown. There were approximately 15,000 farm equipment dealers in the U.S., each having an average customer base of 154 farmers. It was not uncommon to enter a county seat town and find 4 or 5 farm equipment dealers.

Farm equipment dealerships typically consisted of the owner, a salesman, a bookkeeper, parts manager, service manager and 2 or 3 mechanics. The owner was deeply involved in the sales efforts and made all of the decisions pertaining to the brands of equipment that was sold through that dealership. The vast majority of those dealers were single-store dealerships, as multiple-location dealers were extremely rare. There were several International Harvester company stores scattered across my territory.

In 1970, the total number of tractors sold in the U.S. was 163,142, and the majority of those tractors (63.6%) were in the 40-100 horsepower range. The advent of the “lifestyle farmer” — a term invented by the editors of Farm Equipment magazine — had not yet arrived, but there were a number of small farmers who purchased tractors less than 40 horsepower (19.5%). Most of these small farmers were employed full-time off the farm, while many of the larger farmers supplemented their income by working off the farm on a part-time basis. There were many instances where the spouse held a full-time job while the farmer worked full-time on the farm.

We were supplied company vehicles to travel in, but for the first couple of years, I drove a pickup truck pulling a gooseneck trailer with a 990 David Brown tractor and one of our recently introduced 15-foot cutters, which I demonstrated all around the territory. The tractor had been painted Servis yellow, and all of the decals were removed because we were more interested in the farmers seeing the cutter than the tractor. This was just a quick and easy way to put on a field demonstration on the farm of the prospective retail buyers and to help establish new dealers for our products.

Many of the Deere, IH and Ford dealers that I called on took offense at my David Brown tractor, but my response was, “If this David Brown will operate this cutter, then your tractors should have absolutely no problem!” That would usually curtail any future conversation about the David Brown.

I arrived one day at a Massey Ferguson dealer’s location in Kentucky that was a prospective dealer for our products. As soon as I stopped the rig, the dealer came running out with several of his employees.

“OK, boys,” he roared, “I want you to get a good look at this tractor. I just saw it at a Massey meeting last week, and now we have it on our yard!”

I suppose I had a confused look on my face because he turned to me to explain.

“This is one of the new Massey tractors that will be released next spring, right?”

I just looked at him with a wry smile and said, “Well, you might want to read the tag on the fender there.”

He looked down at the David Brown tag, jumped off the tractor and went back into the building. I never did sell him anything.

The number of U.S. farm equipment dealers — 15,000 — and an average of 154 customers per dealership indicated that there were too many dealers. The economy during the early 1970s was very good, but things began to get somewhat difficult by the end of the decade. Farmers were feeling the pinch, as many were ceasing their farming operations and selling their farms, often to neighboring farmers.

I witnessed a few new dealers coming online in the early portion of the decade, but I also saw many established dealers who simply closed their doors as the decade drew to a close. Their territory was assigned to a neighboring dealer by their major tractor manufacturer in order to provide those surviving dealers with enough farmers to make their effort viable.

Not only was this a time of dealer consolidation, but it was also a time of consolidation among the major tractor manufacturers. The pressure to produce a profit for these manufacturers was overwhelming, and most of the less robust ones simply sold out to stronger competition. It was during the mid-1970s that Case announced to their dealers that they intended to produce only tractors and provided their dealers with a list of shortline manufacturers they recommended to supply all other equipment. Case farm tractors were not among the most favored tractors by U.S. farmers, but their tractor/loader/backhoe units were highly regarded. The company’s plan was to maximize tractor sales in both categories.

Around 1973, Kubota made their appearance on the West Coast and began to move east in a rather rapid fashion. By the end of the decade, Kubota had become a major competitor in the small tractor markets and was pressuring Ford for the top spot in that category.

Marketing farm equipment in 1970 was primarily a three-tier marketing system in which many manufacturers sold their products to a distributor, which then sold to the dealer. It had actually been less than a decade since the major tractor manufacturers had moved away from this marketing system and had company representatives calling on their dealers. There were several large, successful distributors of farm equipment in the 1970s, but the pressure on the industry foreshadowed their demise. Many of the larger specialty equipment manufacturers recognized the need to be competitive in this declining farm equipment market and soon replaced their distributors with company representatives and passed the savings on to the dealers in the form of higher discounts for the equipment they purchased.

Traveling during the 1970s was really fun. The interstate system was under construction at that time, and that meant I spent a great deal of time traveling on the older, 2-lane highways. The handy, ever-present CB radio kept me in contact with other travelers and provided a great deal of entertainment along the way.

Several of my customers were International Harvester dealers, and it was easy to spot the IH representatives since they drove either an IH Travelall or IH pickup truck.

Sometime in the 1960s, International Harvester produced their prototype building with the huge, distinctive rectangular structure in the front wall, and it was very easy to spot the IH dealer upon arrival in town. Many of those buildings still exist today as the home of companies outside of farm equipment sales.

Fuel prices at that time had reached the astronomical levels of 35-40 cents per gallon, and by 1975 the national speed limit of 55 mph had been established. That meant the travel time between dealers was expanded, and the number of dealers I could call on was down to about 3 per day.

National hotel chains were few and far between then, but I could usually find a Holiday Inn at my next overnight location. This turned out to be very handy since this was the only motel chain that had a computerized reservation system at that time. Each of those hotels had a dining room, which was often the best restaurant in town, and the food costs were amazing. I regularly bought a chopped steak dinner, complete with a baked potato and a drink for $1.75. I was shocked the first time I saw those prices escalate to over $2.00. Many of these dining rooms had musicians playing a piano for entertainment.

In Tennessee, there were several Holiday Inn Jr. hotels. These usually consisted of a solidly built building to house the lobby and dining room, but the “rooms” were a line of mobile homes that had been converted to motel rooms. They were small, and you had better be pointed in the right direction when you entered the bathroom because you could not turn around in there. These hotels commanded a price of $12-$13 per night.

We had company credit cards to cover our fuel expenses, but I left home each Monday morning with $75.00 in my pocket to cover hotel and meal expenses and would arrive back on Friday night with a bit of change left over.

To my way of thinking, the 1970s were the golden years of farm equipment sales. It was during this time that I established friendships that still exist today, and I met some of the most amazing people.

Farm Equipment magazine not only provided essential news and information about our industry in those early years but has continued to remain in the forefront of being a thought leader for our industry.