From Our Friends at Legacy Quarterly

In 2010, Massey Harris Ferguson Legacy Quarterly magazine produced a special edition combine issue. We weren’t sure how readers would respond to an entire installment dealing with just combines, but the feedback was very positive, and so we are going to do it again with the summer 2012 issue. I have been fortunate to develop a strong network of retired employees from Massey Ferguson with a few even going back to Massey-Harris. These are the people who engineered, designed, built and field-tested the greatest harvesting machines ever built. Our feature story is about the TX-800 prototype conventional combine and the TX-900 rotary—neither of which, due to the old company’s bankruptcy, entered production.

In this issue, we feature a farm family from Manitoba with a large collection of Massey combines. We visit with a retired farmer in Alberta who owns a Massey-Harris 21 that worked in the original World War II Harvest Brigade. This machine had harvested over 20,000 acres of wheat before its owner retired it to a place of honor.

Chief engineer and long-time Massey employee Leeroy Gordon recounts his trip to field-test Massey Ferguson combines in the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. We check out a UK collector who has restored a Scottish-built M-H 735, one of the smallest self-propelled combines Massey ever built. This special issue is rounded out with a look at one of the few interviews given by Massey combine engineering legend Tom Carroll.

Harvesting equipment and combines are what made Massey-Harris’ and later Massey Ferguson’s reputation for innovation and quality. Starting with Daniel Massey’s reaper, the name Massey became synonymous with harvesting excellence.

I sincerely hope this special issue will help document the important history that these former employees, collectors and enthusiasts are trying to preserve.

To subscribe, go to legacyquarterly.com and click on subscribe. While supplies last, subscribers will receive a copy of the special collectible combine edition.