Earlier this week I went up to the annual Randolph FFA tractor parade. This has become quite an annual event. As I came to the school, the parking lot was full of tractors plus they were lined up down the street. While it was a tractor parade, there were two combines in the parking lot that really demonstrated the development of the self-propelled combines.

When farmers progressed from stationary thrashing machines to combines, the first ones were pull types. It was a small combine taking two rows of beans that was pulled with a tractor. Then small self-propelled combines like this McCormick (pictured below, in front) with a 6-foot head hit the market. Here we are about 60 years later with combines like this Case-IH monster (pictured below, in back) that can handle a 30- or 40-foot head. It was impressive to see these combines in the parking lot and parade side by side.

BIG AND SMALL COMBINE
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