There’s never been a better time to go self-sufficient. In our ongoing series, Sally C oulthard shares tried-and-tested tips from her Yorkshire smallholding
THIS MONTH Buying a tractor
When we arrived on the smallholding nearly two decades ago, the first thing we did was buy a tractor. With our budget already bust, it was a choice between a central heating system or a Massey Ferguson. We spent the next three years without hot water.
Every day, our trusty old tractor is called into service. So many jobs around the smallholding need brute muscle power, from moving pallets of paving slabs to taking bales and water troughs to the sheep. The tractor also has several attachments fixed to the front or rear. We often spend weekends using its log splitter or the tractor bucket to dump piles of compost onto the vegetable beds. Whether it’s clearing land, heavy lifting, landscaping, drilling post-holes, digging foundations (using a backhoe) or ploughing snow, tractors make light work of jobs that would otherwise be backbreaking.
When it comes to buying one, the choice can be overwhelming. Tractors come in all shapes and sizes, from lawn run-arounds to commercial vehicles, with price differences to match. There are, however, some key bits of information that can help you through the process.
Let’s start with size. Most smallholders don’t need a huge tractor. They’re often too big and unwieldy for modest fields, narrow gates and even smaller barns. Very large utility tractors are best left to commercial farmers, who have hundreds of acres to plough and harvest. Tractors are also measured in horsepower or HP. Back in the late 18th century, when inventor James Watt was trying to explain how powerful his new steam engine was, he compared it to the only other source of brute power at that time – draught horses. He estimated that a draught horse could pull 330lb, over a distance of 100 feet, in one minute. This is one unit of horsepower.
If you have between one and five acres, you probably only need a sub-compact tractor, typically between 15 and 30 HP (the exact horsepower can vary between manufacturers). Asub-compact tractor isn’t the same as a lawn tractor, which is just for cutting lawn grass. Adecent sub-compact should have four-wheel drive and be compatible with anumber of attachments, such as log-splitters, harrows and trailers. For a bigger smallholding, between five and 15 acres, you’ll need something a bit more robust. These are called compact tractors and go up to around 50 HP. For larger farms over 15 acres, 50+ HP utility or big utility tractors are more common. As a rule, the heftier the task, the bigger the tractor. These are loose guidelines, though, and what you choose will depend
