Nicolas Lirio 0:00
Juds been grumpy. But that's okay, 'cause you've been working for

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 0:01
Real R. He's worked the most out of all of us.

Nicolas Lirio 0:06
These straight hours. You know what you're clocked in at?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 0:09
Lil' Rady. Do I have to do anything when I get home? Like a pile of email.

Nicolas Lirio 0:10
Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio 0:15
we got a pile of emails dude. I'm trying I tried to get to some today.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 0:18
I apologize to all the customers that have emailed me or attempted to call me when I'm on a combine that I can't shut off because it might not turn back on.

Nicolas Lirio 0:27
What what we should do is when we make this vlog of harvest

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 0:32
What is the not zero chance of when we turn the key on one of our combines all four tires fall off?

Nicolas Lirio 0:38
It's like it's it's no it's about it's a full integer, I'll tell you that. It's a w one or two percent. my goodness.

Unidentified speaker 0:41
wanted to...

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 0:52
Love it if w it just rapidly disassembled into all of its constituent parts and just like a blow apart diagram just out there on the driveway. John if you had an RPG yesterday. Yes. Twice.

Nicolas Lirio 1:00
Dude, we would

Nicolas Lirio 1:06
What are we RPG? No, it was it was the night

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 1:08
For good measure.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 1:13
It was the night before last. It was the night before last that we got the the RPG. Alex is driving from an hour and ten minutes away or however far away he lives, and I get over here and like I just put the Carol Disconnect back on the battery and hopped up in there and keyed it and it fired. Right now.

Nicolas Lirio 1:19
Yesterday morning Alex

Nicolas Lirio 1:36
Yeah, the night before it would not start. Wouldn't we did the old hammer on the no nothing?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 1:39
Even I worked on it for like an hour and a half trying to get it to start and it just no RPG

Nicolas Lirio 1:48
yeah. No, we don't have insurance on those bad boys.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 1:52
We could we could phone a friend to Carly right now and you guys could hear all the nice things I was saying about that machine night before last. And she we have a good a good habit of listening to each other's problems without offering solutions. Just commiserate with each other. If if you could have taken that that rage over to Goofy Ridge, d I couldn't I couldn't have taken on the whole town. We can't talk about that. It's too close to where I live. They'll come for me. They'll all get in the back of a pickup and come find me.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 2:27
Nobody should go to Goofy Ridge. You're not welcome.

Nicolas Lirio 2:29
You're not That's not Judd telling you, that's the rest of the town letting you know you're not well sorry.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 2:37
Alright, we're gonna laugh a lot because we are all delirious delirious.

Nicolas Lirio 2:40
Delirious. Hardly lucid. well

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 2:45
And I aspirated a pork white, unfortunately.

Nicolas Lirio 2:48
I breathed in a gallon of rattlesnake master today. Just right in the old lungs. I coughed a quarter of it out.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 2:56
Got enough seed right here to plant a tray of plugs. He like l crumples his shirt up in the corner for a week and it's sprouted.

Nicolas Lirio 3:09
Honestly challenge accepted. I feel like you could dance with

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 3:13
That's marketable. Seed shirts. Yeah, seed shirts.

Nicolas Lirio 3:18
Man, genius. a little hard left, I saw an interesting ad on Facebook the other day. John Deere, our good friends, John Deere. This is a public ad, so you guys can see it. I'm not defaming anyone. their exact words were we believe that farmers have the right to repair.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 3:25
Can't imagine.

Nicolas Lirio 3:41
And then the comments, man. The comments.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 3:44
That's like a far that's like a Farm Bureau conservation post. my gosh.

Nicolas Lirio 3:48
I really couldn't believe it. I was like, weren't you guys like the front runners of a lawsuit just two years ago? Yeah. I know you were because we covered it in a podcast. We literally did so I took a screenshot of it and I I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. But

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 4:02
Some marketing intern got the Facebook password.

Nicolas Lirio 4:05
Nah we're all sheep. We'll we're all gonna forget that John Deere fought us on the right to repair. and you know what all this talk so this is literally what inspired today's topic. You guys saw the title. Judd and Kent wrestling with everything and about twice a day be like, We gotta we gotta switch brands of vehicles. Well no tractors really haven't been the issue.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 4:09
Yeah.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 4:27
We gotta get different tracks. Lustin after some J D side hill unit that's on the marketplace for like twenty five hundred bucks.

Nicolas Lirio 4:37
Don't make fun of Riley for lusting after Facebook Marketplace. You're the most lusty Facebook marketplace I've ever seen. Okay. Have you seen Okay, we're good. Audio. So have you guys seen the video where the guy, he's like, Yeah, so for a living, I lowball people on Facebook. man, that's good. That's you, Ken.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 4:43
Stop saying lusty.

Unidentified speaker 4:49
Yeah, we're good,

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 5:00
Yeah. I don't wall ball.

Nicolas Lirio 5:06
Yeah, I no. you're not doing it right then, dude.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 5:09
I usually pay people what they're asking. I mean if it's advertised correctly. Yeah, if it's if it's fair, I'll I'll pay what people who obsess over always winning every deal, nobody likes those people. Yeah. It might take a little while to get to the point where nobody likes but eventually they'll be there.

Nicolas Lirio 5:23
That's true.

Nicolas Lirio 5:28
My dad, my biological father, gave me great advice one time. He said it on specifically I think it was like consignment shops, he said, You should be willing, if it's actually a good deal, you should be willing to pay two or three times as much for that item and you still want it. He's like, If if it passes that test, then yeah, it's a great deal. Go ahead, go get it. Or like on Facebook Market Page, if if you offered fifty percent more to the person and did them a favor, would you still feel like you're getting a good deal? Otherwise you might not it might not be worth the hassle of you know we gotta jump through, but all right. We're tired, we're going home, it's dark, we should get started.

Nicolas Lirio 6:12
Coffee time Wednesdays with the Prairie Farm podcast. Can't hit us with the jingle. Doo doo.

Nicolas Lirio 6:25
Friends, the prairie's getting tall. It's getting time. The birds are a whistling and a chirping. And that means it is almost hunting season. So if you enjoy walking through the tall grass, pulling ticks off of yourself, and hanging out with your dogs, we highly recommend going to birdhuntersupply.com. Now I understand if you want to be out on the landscape, you don't necessarily want to just hang out on a website. But Dr. Russ Benedict was correct when he said the Prairie was actually a very adverse place, and we need to be prepared. So prepare yourself for your hunting season, your trail walking season, and your bird dog hunting season at birdhuntersupply.com. They've got everything you need for yourself on the bird hunting and everything you need for your bird dog. We highly recommend the assortment of equipment that they provide on there is extensive and far above my head. But They have exactly what you need. Not only will they take care of you in that, but they actually help take care of the land as well. When I was talking to the owners, they said, we actually donate a certain amount of money to conservation every single year. And I asked them, do you have a donation button at the end where people can donate when they check out, which is really common? And he said, No, we actually donate from our profits. So they literally take their earned profits and donate that to conservation efforts because they care. They want to see the landscape have habitat and stay healthy for future generations. Highly, highly recommend BirdhunterSupply dot com. Welcome back to the Prairie Farm Podcast. Coffee Time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Lirio. Favorite co-host, Kim Boucher.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 7:59
Hey hey. Ken Spark to co-host?

Nicolas Lirio 8:01
yeah. Well look, Riley abandoned us today, to farm with his family like he had told us he was going to three years ago. And and so he's out there. We were in the fields wrestling things today, and we were joined not by Riley, who was doing other good work in the world, but by Judd McCollum. Hoxie Native Seeds, most talent naturally talented podcaster.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 8:23
Hello.

Nicolas Lirio 8:28
False. Not as honed skills. Actually this is true. Not as honed of a skill Kent. I mean, Kent just what are you, six hundred episodes or more in of podcasting?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 8:37
Four hundred here. Maybe around seven hundred or something. Crazy.

Nicolas Lirio 8:41
Crazy. Ken has like an unbelievably honed skill and he understands what people will want to listen to later. Judd, you're just entertaining. You're just

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 8:48
If you want a good visual representation of what happens in my head, watch Old School when Will Smith or Will Smith. Will Farrell's character's doing the d debate and he like goes into a fugue state, it's like what happened? comes back. That's that's what happens to me sometimes when people ask me a question.

Nicolas Lirio 9:05
Honestly, this is kinda sad. When I first met you, I was like, Kent, really? This guy's gonna be like a good podcast interview? And then by golly, you worry.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 9:13
You keep taking credit for the hire of Judd. You wouldn't even know Judd existed if it wasn't for

Nicolas Lirio 9:17
Yeah, I take half the credit for her.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 9:19
We gotta thank Trevor Schmidt for that. Yeah, Trevor Schmidt gets the credit. Trevor, if you're out there listening to this by some miracle, we love you. Likewise.

Nicolas Lirio 9:23
Yeah and and Jed's mall.

Nicolas Lirio 9:30
I'd love to meet you. All right, let's talk about the history of tractor companies. Before we get started, I'm gonna tell you how the story ends. There are three major tractor companies that are not in Asia. Can you name them?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 9:46
well is it the big conglomerate that owns Agco and Case IH C C N H and New Holland John Deere and CNH, John Deere and No, it's Agco and all those are separate then. Those are all owned by C and H. I don't think C and H is Case New Holland. And Agco is its

Nicolas Lirio 10:08
No no no. I don't think Yeah, and Massie Ferguson, Agco.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 10:16
Okay, I thought I thought C and H owned AgCo as well. They probably do. Well, you know what? We can find out.

Nicolas Lirio 10:22
Yeah. We can find out right now. The

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 10:27
So those were the three that you had though, Adco, C N H and then.

Nicolas Lirio 10:30
When you look into the history of tractor companies, they're it is like the most merger ha trigger happy industry I've ever seen. It is insane. John Deere has actually had very few mergers. When you invent one of the most useful things in human history, you don't

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 10:46
No, it does not it does not own them. Okay. CNH does not own Agco Corporation.

Nicolas Lirio 10:52
Now I wanna throw in there Kubota is technically a tractor company and they're kind of like another big one. They're in Japan.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 10:59
Yeah, but yeah, you said American, right? Well I

Nicolas Lirio 11:01
non Asian. And the reason I said is because they mostly focus on excavation. So they're huge.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 11:06
There's like a bajillion other Asian brands of tractors.

Nicolas Lirio 11:09
Yeah. Well and Kubota's the one that's successfully permeated the United States.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 11:14
Yes. So there's this guy I used to go to church with, and we were both on the deacon board at the Before you got kicked out. Did not get kicked out of my church.

Nicolas Lirio 11:23
Yeah.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 11:28
If I did it would be for acting like Nicholas. that's fair. we were on the deacon board together, so we had to count like the the church offering on Sundays. Like it'd be our month to do it or whatever. And he was like I don't know, let's see. He's probably thirty five years older than me. And a hoot of a person, right? Just like he's al he always uses

Nicolas Lirio 11:31
Ha ha.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 11:58
Great one liners. And so we're sitting there, we're having a good time. And this farmer walks in and he's like this guy owned a hardware store and they sold like he was a s a licensed steel dealer, you know, steel chainsaws and stuff like that, and Toro and stuff. And he's like, You know what? You really oughta sell hinder tractors at your store. They're a new tractor brand, and man, I just think those things are gonna be so popular. People are gonna everyone's gonna have a Mahinder tractor here in the next few years. And my friend who I was with is like a couple years from retirement, right? He's not looking to bring become a new dealer for someone for a tractor, you know? And he's like feeling real awkward because the guy is just like not letting it go. He's like, Yeah, well, yeah, no, no, no. Mahinder's gonna be well, like, I don't know, three months ago. I g I like look at my news app, Mahindra Tractor, files for bankruptcy. And I and I'd sent that I sent that to that guy, but I I never heard back, so I was kinda disappointed.

Nicolas Lirio 12:57
No.

Nicolas Lirio 13:05
Do you think a tractor company today would thrive if they just made a good product? Or do you think they have to have like all this brand and other stuff behind them as well?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 13:14
I think so much of it is brand loyalty and r recognition. Nob I I think very few people when it's time for a new tractor that they go, Well, we've always done John Deere. We better check and see if those new fence got the you know same same amount of horsepower, you know, have yeah, have this feature and that feature, the You know, I think they just go, Okay, we need a new tractor. We always get John Deere's. Okay, do we want the John Deere blah blah blah or the John Deere blah blah blah? You know what I mean? Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio 13:48
Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right. Until I mean, I guess it would be a big ordeal for a family to switch over. Like right now if we decide we're not doing orange anymore.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 13:57
Well and there's like there's I I remember one of my first weeks here, because I came from the Quad City, so everything's John Deere around there. Because Moline is Yeah. And well well there's a lot of red though too because IH used to have a big well, case IH you used to have a big manufacturing plant in Davenport as well and that closed down when I was a kid. That was a big deal. but

Nicolas Lirio 14:07
Basically not to be.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 14:26
when I came here, you know, here's Carol has got Alice and Gleaner, everything, right? And I asked him, I like, Why you why are you a Alice Chalmers guy? And he's he said, That's what I grew up on. That's what I know. And now that I'm in Carol's position, always having to work on stuff, you just learn like there's certain things about AC that, you know, for instance, almost every bolt on an AC is either a nine sixteenths or a seven sixteenths wrench size. so when you go to work on a combine or something, you always grab a nine sixteenths and a seven sixteenths. There's an on occasion a three quarters or there's a half inch, but it's almost always those two sizes. And so I think there's and you know j I don't know if it's true on modern stuff, but like older J D hydraulic ends are different than Alice and and and I think Alice uses more of a s universal end, but there's like a specific J D end which is super annoying and

Nicolas Lirio 15:36
I feel like somebody's done some in-depth study on like who spends more on repairs. You know, what what brand of tractor do you have to spend? We should actually like I feel like we you should make decisions based on that, you know what I mean? But it's also like Toyota. Yeah. So Toyota and Ford, fun fact, you basically spend the same amount on the cars, but Toyota, you spend it all up front. And Ford, you spend it over the course of the next ten years as you get stuff fixed.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 16:03
You're buying reliability, yeah. Same with Yamaha and Mercury outboards.

Nicolas Lirio 16:08
What is Mercury outboard?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 16:10
brand of outboard I don't know which is better. I would assume Mercury is better than a Yamaha outboard. In salt water, Yamaha's are like the standard.

Nicolas Lirio 16:19
No, Yamaha's a piano company.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 16:21
Yeah. Yeah. And dirt bikes. Saltwater piano. No, pianos don't. no, but like pay up front for the Omaha's and then you just don't have any problems with them. Interesting. What about Honda outboards? Those seem like they're the best. I d not nobody ran which kind of speaks for itself. When I was down there and I lived on the Gulf and worked with boats, nobody had a of slept on the beach often. Yeah, yeah. There's a there's a few Volvos. Picture homeless Juds sleeping on the beach. Not homeless, no, I was fishing.

Nicolas Lirio 16:23
They don't do well in

Nicolas Lirio 16:50
I my first little motorcycle, I was eight years old when I first drove it. It was a little Honda, little red Honda. Straight into the bond. I did not I did not drive that was a four wheeler, yeah. huh. Adorable little thing. I I crashed it enough that I bent the steering wheel, but it still ran. I mean you just had

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 17:05
I don't know if I ever saw

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 17:12
Handlebars you mean the steering problem that that's why you crashed it. Can you imagine can you imagine steering a motorcycle or bike with a steering wheel?

Nicolas Lirio 17:22
Yes, I can. Have you seen the zero turn mowers that just they freak me out, man.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 17:26
they'll pitch you right off. Well, our new swath is all steering wheel instead of instead of clutch. I I I've learned something about that tonight. So instead of throwing it in reverse and making any big adjustments, you just keep that wheel right where you're at and it just continues the arc you're in. So you don't have like for some reason when you go to into reverse you have this idea you've got to Like panic and crank the wheel. Complete brain buster. Immediately backwards. It's a puzzle every time you do it, but if something clicked tonight, I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna, you know, go forward. Yeah, imagine backing that thing off the swather trailer. The first time you ever touched it, I don't know how you didn't just turn it perpendicular and flip it over on top of yourself. I almost did. Well just like when you when you put it in reverse, the rear wheels have to turn all the way around. So there's a huge jaw in the bottom is like shit. When we were coming off the trailer, Alex lifted up the rear end and then we spun the tires manually. But even still driving off was terrifying. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio 18:30
That is not what I'm trying to do.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 18:34
have to ask Zach DeBryan about when I loaded that three wheel that three wheel wonder on the his flatbed that Owatana swather that was I I I think both of us were we were the guy who sold it to me was the one who was most scared. I think he was like this is a lawsuit that's

Nicolas Lirio 18:55
It's coming down on me. And Kent was thinking, Man, I can't wait for this lawsuit I'm getting new house. No.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 19:02
I would have died. There's no there's no that's probably the closest I'd deal for me.

Nicolas Lirio 19:05
was like man this was a good he's getting a new house all right let's talk about some tractor brands john deere founded in Kent you're from the quad city and when any idea when

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 19:15
Moline, Illinois. eighteen thirty seven.

Nicolas Lirio 19:21
That was good. But they did their first tractor in

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 19:25
that's like well, they technically didn't build tractors themselves. They bought Waterloo Boy. Nice. And they several times. Actually took actually took we would take school field trips there. They just sleep there pavilion. And you wanna know something interesting, I don't know if they still have it there, but they used to have this big digital counter, which was the world's population. Hmm.

Nicolas Lirio 19:36
Yeah.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 19:55
First number was six back then. Wow. When I was in grade school. Now it is eight. Crazy. We've added two billion people since I was in grade school.

Nicolas Lirio 20:03
That is a lot of humans. It that's slowing down these days.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 20:07
Slowing down. Which is gonna be so weird. You know what I mean? Like w when we're talk we're talk we have a declining birth rate, not just here, but most places around the world, right? Yeah, you're doing your share. Yeah. I've I've doubled myself. Yeah. True.

Nicolas Lirio 20:23
The that is true. So they bought Waterloo Boy in nineteen eighteen. and then they finally designed their own Model D in nineteen twenty three.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 20:34
Wow, so they just ran on those Waterloo boys for five years, absolutely.

Nicolas Lirio 20:38
Yeah, apparently. Interesting. so John Deere doesn't do any major mergers. They bought small but they didn't do major mergers. They are dominant today for two reasons. They invented a steel plow, which changed humanity, and that's like it's like inventing the iPhone, you what I It's just like a whole ordeal. and would carry them for years and ye decades, literally decades and decades and decades. And they have been the most conservative tractor company since then. So they don't take big swings. They just make incremental changes. They don't hype up long.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 21:09
Yeah, that's a good that's a good point. They haven't really bought out other than Waterloo Boy. I can't think of any anybody else. Yeah. Construction companies when they got into construction markets, maybe? Yeah, maybe they did.

Nicolas Lirio 21:19
They had some deal

Nicolas Lirio 21:25
so they're big yep, they're big things besides the steel plow, combine the tractors today. They've done some construction and they've done some forestry have been

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 21:36
Yeah, they do have some forestry. Yeah. In fact, my father in law used to work at a dealership for their forestry equipment in New Hampshire. Nice.

Nicolas Lirio 21:44
Interesting. So I know Weiler, which is in Knoxville, my Knoxville, not Judd's, has they bought Caterpillar's Forestry Department, which is kind of interesting. Like yeah, 'cause Caterpillar was literally like, it only does a billion dollars a year, it's not even worth us dealing with. Literally that's what it was. And they had a good relationship with with Caterpillar, so they they bought it. International Harvester. they started as a reaper.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 21:54
Well they're

Nicolas Lirio 22:13
And obviously did trucks for a while.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 22:16
Wait, a reaper as in l just like a cy?

Nicolas Lirio 22:20
No, it's like I can pull up a thing. Pull up a picture, like an old time reaper. Because it was a it was like a Thresher kind of a thing. Case International started as J I Case. it was one of the first

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 22:31
Interesting.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 22:42
okay. I yeah, I've seen these. I know they vacuumed up a whole bunch of smaller companies because the town that I grew up close to, Canton, had an international harvester plant in it that was the Parlon and Orendorf. Plow company or something like that. And they had they had bought up people, I think. And then I.

Nicolas Lirio 23:10
That's good to know. Yeah, they that was also when they sold their most successful tractor was 1998, the the 8950. But they started in 1892 with a gas tractor that totally flopped. That was their first that was Yeah. Okay, they totally flopped, but then they introduced a gas tractor again in 1911. So 20 years later, and that one did quite well. They're obviously

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 23:29
Yeah case.

Nicolas Lirio 23:39
The flagship of Case International Harvester or CNH. Today, they are second to John Deere in terms of tractor companies. there was, I wasn't gonna get too far into this, but Ford was a thing at one point in time. And they got bought by New Holland, and New Holland got swallowed by CNH. New Holland actually was a bailer and then got tracked. They bought

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 24:09
I thought New Holland bought bought case

Nicolas Lirio 24:19
That's a good No, I thought I th I thought K SIH bought New Holland, but I've got that information here later.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 24:19
Much later.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 24:25
I don't know how you're reading that. That looks like a bingo card, Nicholas.

Nicolas Lirio 24:31
I'm the one who typed it out. Well didn't type it out. I'm the one who got the information.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 24:37
Just flash it at the camera real fast just so the viewers can have a look at what you got going on.

Nicolas Lirio 24:41
Little dingy here. All right. I'm gonna find this. Okay.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 24:47
No, they just merged. In nineteen ninety nine.

Nicolas Lirio 24:49
But there is no such thing as a true merger. There is always a winner and a loser, even if on paper they're equals. I wanna skip to Alice Chalmers. Alice Chalmers

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 25:05
Next world go round.

Nicolas Lirio 25:08
I feel like we make Alice Chalmers world go round.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 25:11
Fiat Alice Chalmers was a revolutionary one. The Case Corporation. Fiat did? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they and Fiat turned him into CNH.

Nicolas Lirio 25:22
Here are all the brands under CNH. International Harvester, JI Case, Steiger, Forge Tractor, New Holland, Fiat, David Brown's Legacy, D I say New Holland, and Steyer. Those are all the major brands I got bought in. I mean it it is truly a conglomerate. Yeah.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 25:41
Nothing compared to Agco though. Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio 25:43
Alice Chalmers, eighteen sixty one, their flagship.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 25:49
really? That's ancient.

Nicolas Lirio 25:51
Their flagships were the seven series.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 25:54
Evidently we weren't too busy with you know, civil war going on.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 26:01
A great time to invent a tractor. A lot of people to feed.

Nicolas Lirio 26:03
so anybody know what major, major United States construction project they serviced heavily? And I'll explain how and

Unidentified speaker 26:05
Sure.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 26:17
eighteen sixties has to be a railroad or something.

Nicolas Lirio 26:20
it was later it was later than eighteen sixties. No.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 26:22
interstate. That's a good guess. That's a really good guess.

Nicolas Lirio 26:26
No.

Nicolas Lirio 26:30
I mean it this is major. This is a as popular as the interstates.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 26:34
Panama came. The bridges or something.

Nicolas Lirio 26:36
you guys are getting close. The Mer put you guys as two together.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 26:39
Panama the bridge over the Panama Canal.

Nicolas Lirio 26:41
Hoover Dam. they they built the turbines for the Hoover Dam project. they once upon a time they kind of got their start from building flour mills. And then of course they blew up with their all crop harvester, actually. Fun fact that kind of like was their big breakout, and then they did the seven series, which was again an incredible thing. But here's so I looked into this because we have said on this podcast, and it's pretty accurate. The seven series put Alice Chalmers out of business because they were so good when the eight series came out. One, nobody had any money 'cause it was the eighties and the farm crisis. And two, everybody's seven series still worked great. But here's what it actually was they swung too hard. So John Deere had the same issue, but they again they were more conservative. They didn't make as many tractors. They didn't Exactly, exactly. So Alice Chalmers and I mean people flippin' love the eight series, you know, today.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 27:31
They overextended themselves.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 27:40
you see one for sale, it is top dollar.

Nicolas Lirio 27:44
yeah. And and so I in terms of like product, it's a bummer. It almost seems like Alice Chalmers was run by like a fanatic inventor at the time and like and but not a good business person. I don't know.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 27:56
Yeah. But so I got a question. It's gonna derail this whole thing, but pay attention to this sort of thing. What do you think manufacturing looks like in today's world without planned obsolescence? Yeah, today.

Nicolas Lirio 28:07
Today, we would get a lot less stuff from overseas. I want to tell you a little story about our team here at Hoxy Native Seeds. Years ago, years ago, my dad and I were talking. What is the point of this company? We knew that it was conservation. We knew that we were growing seed to help people, but we we didn't know where we were going, what we wanted to actually do. Did we want to mostly plant on other people's land? Did we want to mostly grow native seed with high high quality ecotypes? Did we want to mostly consult with people? We didn't quite know. So we we spent months, literally months, boiling it down. And we came up with this goal: that we want to provide education and native seed for landowners and land managers who care about their neighbors, their investment, and the wildlife around them. Now, of course, with education, you can go to hoxynative seeds.com and we've got a huge native plant database. We've got a learning center, we've got tons of podcasts that you can listen to to learn some of the stuff from the foremost experts. But for the native seed, that's actually what pays the bills on everything else. So if you need native seed or guidance on your native seed journey, planting a prairie or a wetland or a savanna mix or even a shady mix, remember our goal is to help you not just with the native seed, but we want to educate you every step of the way. So we're not just gonna ship you seed and ghost you afterwards, we're gonna take care of you. We have people that call three, four, five years later with management questions, and we're here to answer them. That's what we want to do, but it's all paid for. Buy the native seed sale. So go to hoxynative seeds dot com and we'll talk to you soon.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 29:39
We get a yeah, 'cause you'd buy one thing and it'd work for forty years. Like a company would literally have to just build washers for two years and then switch to building dryers for two years. Yeah. And then switch to building a car for two years.

Nicolas Lirio 29:50
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, glass for glass a lot. Yeah, I I think I've been thinking about that a lot. Like, we're gonna bring manufacturing back to the United States. I'm like, Well, you're gonna pay people thirty dollars an hour, like they actually should get paid? I don't think so. You know what I mean? Like at what, people are gonna go to Walmart and just be chill with their Xbox costing two thousand dollars? I don't think so. You know?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 29:52
Well, fifty years, you know.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 30:10
Yeah. Well that goes back to Mahindra. They like they made the best U T V you can get because they bought the is it Willie's or Willis Jeep? Willie's. Willys. They bought the Willie's I've only ever read it. They bought the Willie's patent when it expired. Yeah. And that's what their rock saw is. And I got to drive one of those around Texas in my last job for about a month and th it's just incredible. It makes a Polaris Ranger look like a A Willy A Willie's Jeep. You you drove one of those. Yeah, my dad's got one. The Roxor is a Willie's Jeep. It is with a three cylinder diesel owning engine in it. You can throw that thing in second, it'll just puddle on. I just shot so many hogs that way. It's Texas, so it's legal, so don't come in.

Nicolas Lirio 30:50
Well I don't I that the Mah I mean Mahindra's Indian, like from from India, and then the other major Asian one that we've seen over here is Kubota. Of course. They're more minor on the tractor part. They're major companies in other parts.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 31:07
Coyote. Isn't that another one? Yeah, it's some it's exorbitantly expensive. It was expensive before the other ones had to be UTV. No, no, they made little tractors like the Loda and Mahindra. I don't know, I've never I've never It's just a big enough tractor to put a grapple bucket on and clean up some brush. Like I don't think they have anything that could even like pull a baler or run a haymow anything.

Nicolas Lirio 31:27
I'm not trying to beat up people that have like a homes like a a farmstead and so they have like a small tractor. It makes I just like I'm just used to like growing up here on the

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 31:34
Small track.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 31:38
I beat up for not buying a Ford eight in. That's what I beat him up for. Yeah. It's like you literally just spent twenty five thousand dollars on something that you could have done f with the same horsepower every two wrenches. Right. And for twenty five hundred dollars. And a can of oil. If that's an expensive

Nicolas Lirio 31:56
Why do Ford tractors have a cult following? Because you know, tons of other tractor brands don't. Like Whites. My my nobody c talked about white.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 32:04
No, no, no, no. You better be careful. There's there's a lot of people out there that like White. The I've only heard negative things. My my my grandpa he drove or ran, I guess you'd say, Fords and Olivers. Started on Olivers and then Oliver was purchased by White and and at that point he I think they got their first Ford back in the Might have been like mid fifties. I think it was a forty seven was a year on that. No it wasn't, it was a fifty two. They bought it in like the mid fifties. And it was an eight N. And so I think that like started down the path of of owning Fords. So then when Oliver was purchased by White, then he just stuck with Fords. I think he had a s I can't remember. Luke Fritz, no. set I think it was the I think they used to call them a seven a seven seventy, which I think Doug owns a seven seventy, and then they called it a seventy-seven. And then they went to the TW series and he has a TW 15, which we still have now. And they were good tractors. I mean, Ford's they like the 8N was I mean, you can tell what was truly great by going on Marketplace. Yeah, right. There's a bajillion 8Ns out there just like there's a bajillion all-card. Every one of them runs. Yep. There's a bajillion. A C one eighty five and there's a bajillion John Deere forty twenties and

Nicolas Lirio 33:37
Did you see Iowan Natural Heritage Foundation's video of them using an all crop? That all crop looked so good. It was like like the paint from like the the tags.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 33:44
Yeah, it was nice.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 33:49
Yeah, you could tell it was a later it was a later model, yeah. Is that the one you got a call about parts for? Yeah. Yep. Interesting. And we got Going back to the the Ford tractors though, you a person could fix anything on Even if, you know, you ran it out of oil and scored the cylinders, you just pull the sleeves out and press a new set in. Yeah. And then you don't have to have it re bored. You didn't you know, you could have the heads re milled and all the that Give me a simple tractor.

Nicolas Lirio 33:56
File on.

Nicolas Lirio 34:17
If they were such a great tractor, why did they go out of business? I'm not saying they weren't. Like why aren't we?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 34:21
That can be part of the problem is like if you never have to buy from your if your customer base never has to buy from you ever again. Then your manufacturing and sales wing are just sitting on their hands and you know, like for me, I just I was worried my muzzle odor was cooked from last year because I may have been a little negligent in cleaning it after shooting my last year. And I got it up and going last night and I was just fact I was so happy about it while we were digging seed out of the auger on the F two tonight. I was thinking about how happy I was that I got my muzzle loader going again. And I was thinking like muzzle loaders how happy they would how happy they would have four hundred bucks, no. How happy they'd be if I had to buy a new one. And I was like, Yeah, you know what? There's the there's this balance for a company like that. I think gun manufacturers really still kind of set the standard for standing behind their products and like really caring about having certain companies. Yeah, cer not certainly not all. but the like you're a lot of those things are viewed as like future heirloom, right? Yeah. And so they they make to last forever. And but there's some, you know, like Judd said, playing to ob obsolescence. Like that's also been part of the, you know, the the secret sauce for how a business grows and makes money. So you have to balance like Are we content with Kent having to buy another CVA Optima V two? Or are we content with when Kent's dead someday, his son wants to buy a C VA Optima V two because his dad liked his so much. Or he needs parts for his dad. Right. And and that that reality I think just for farm equipment, because think of how slow the turnover is. For a farm versus a gun. You know what I mean? Like my son's especially when we look at how farm, you know, succession, we were just talking with the bank earlier last week, succession planning for farms. You have guys that are farming well into their seventies now, and by the time their kid is now having the farm, you know, he's not looking at buying tractors anymore. Yeah. So if you made a tractor that lasted forever.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 36:45
You're like, pff, I'm fifty seven. I'll just use dads until I retire, you know.

Nicolas Lirio 36:49
You think that's why John Deere was fighting so hard to n for the right the opposite of the right to repair so that they could actually make some income on you know, certain

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 36:58
Sure. And I'm not saying that I think they were making their stuff break on purpose. I don't think so. From what I can tell, if I had to if I had to l gun to my head and say which one do you think is probably most reliable out of all of the all of the big three, I would say probably John Deere stuff. so I I'm not s saying that I think that they you know, they were trying to s set up their own fix bill, but it certainly was another form of income.

Nicolas Lirio 37:27
Yeah, I I think about that a lot. Like if Hoxy Native Seeds and the Prairie Farm Podcast was a hundred percent A plus successful on getting as much prairie as we want Yeah, we we would have to transition to just prairie managers, I guess.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 37:36
Yeah, we go out of business.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 37:41
We'll start selling steel plows, you know. Create some more demand.

Nicolas Lirio 37:45
Big circle.

Unidentified speaker 37:47
HAHAHAHA

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 37:49
Ha ha ha.

Nicolas Lirio 37:50
man.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 37:53
We we will sell you a steel plow. Yeah, and don't go be buying those those little new yard tractors for twenty five K. Go get yourself an eight in. Yeah. Like Yeah, people out there basically give you a bucket to go on it. They'll give you Yeah, because when you load that bucket, the steering goes away. You better put a cheater bar through that steering wheel. It's like driving a log truck. Just know what direction you're going.

Nicolas Lirio 38:02
Or get like

Nicolas Lirio 38:22
my goodness. All right, we should talk about it's a couple pages away. what's actually going on today with tractor companies because I find this flipping interest. 2026, as of October, US tractor sales fell sixteen point four percent in September from a year earlier. Mind you, a good tractor company would hope to make like Walmart would love to make seven percent net profit at the end of the year.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 38:32
Needlessly complicated.

Nicolas Lirio 38:50
So their sales fell 16.4%. That is if your company's already down, that could ruin you. I'm not saying that's what happened here. both John Deere and CNH gave a report in 2025 that they expected sales to be down 2026 and that they expect sales to be up 2027, which sounds like a great way to cover your butt when you know the sales are gonna be down. She said, Well, no, we we planned this, we figured we figured this would happen. Obviously the right to repair has hurt John Deere settled the FTC lawsuit. and for ten years must give farmers and independent shops the same diagnostic tools and manuals its dealers get. The tariffs also hurt equipment sales, especially from Kubota. and John Deere and CNH have cut this year, 2026 have cut thousands of jobs here in the Midwest. Now, John Deere was gonna go to Mexico and then Trump slapped those tariffs on and they kind of canceled those plans for their manufacturing being set up in Mexico. So I I don't know, it it kind of looks like they got caught, you know, between between two tough situations because they closed down or got rid of a lot of people, even here in Iowa. Being like, We're going to Mexico and then got to the border and we were like, Yeah, going to Mexico And so I don't know, you know, are they gonna come back and be like, You're rehired

Unidentified speaker 40:21
You know, I love

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 40:21
A lot I think when I was a kid growing up in the quad cities, a lot of people who worked for deer would get laid off for a long stretch of time, then they'd be back working for in some capacity, you know, a maybe a year later or something like that. I mean if you think if you got someone who's familiar with the company, it's just like when Ben, you know, says, Hey, I got some hours available, I'll come back and weed for you, that's like a godsend, right? 'Cause he knows where everything is around here, he knows how everything goes. He you know he doesn't need anybody telling him Other than hey, we could use help in this field and he knows exactly what he's doing, you know. So I'm sure they they probably do seek those people out right away.

Nicolas Lirio 41:01
Well, I think to me, yeah, sales are down on that. I think that talks about where ags at and stuff like that. But the big story to me is that in nineteen twenty there were just shy of one hundred tractor selling companies. And today there are three. in the United States and Europe and or I should say three companies do about ninety eight percent of the of the market share there. And you know, I was talking to a guy who does flooring for a living and he he had an interesting take. He said, Look, there twenty years ago there were all these flooring companies doing all these different vinyl stuff and they had different click together systems. You needed different tools. It was a nightmare. And he's like, Now three or four companies bought all of them up and it's a lot more simple. You need less sets of tools. That's a nice way to think about it. Yeah. But also like, competition's good. Competition just good.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 41:53
Yeah. Yeah, I think about this a lot because I am far from like a expert tractor historian. I think every point I tried to make today I've been proven wrong by Chad GP or

Nicolas Lirio 42:06
No, you knew eighteen thirty seven John Deere.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 42:08
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. you know, it's free. It was really free to go there. And if if you've never been there, you really should go. It's a it's a cool experience. But the I think about this a lot because I do, you know, I have interest in that. Like I said, my grandpa, you know, he operated Oliver and in fact I have this awesome picture which you should use for the cover art. the yeah, the cover art or whatever for this episode. It's of my great grandpa who I never met. He was he passed away, I think when my mom was like two or three, so back in the sixties. But he went to the state fair and they would try to go to the state fair every year. I think some years they just didn't have the money probably. But you know, my grandpa said they'd get up like extra early and just like sprint through their chores, you know, 'cause that was the big thing was to go to the state fair. And there's this picture of my great grandpa. He's got he's wearing a tie. He's all cleaned up for the state fair. And the Oliver Super 88 just came out. Or not Super Eighty, just eighty-eight. it came out and he's standing there posing with it with his arm, you know, up on the hood and and of course, you know, it's all black and white photo. He's not smiling or anything. Just looks like a boss hog up there with a you know, with this all new Oliver tractor. And you know, so like I have interest in that. That's part of my family story. And I enjoy talking chop about it a little bit, but I I don't know near as much as guys like the DeBrian family, you know, like Zach and Jim and even Zach's mom. You know, those people know so much. Luke French knows a ton, especially about case tractors. He he's a big case guy. Yep, they know a lot about yeah, all us

Nicolas Lirio 43:57
Grant down the road here. When someone knows a lot about tractors, the facts just like spew out of them. As if you be like, that's a that's a seventy ten. did you know the seventy ten, the first ones they had kind of a black under belly and the latter ones they had a red. You know why they did that? You know, like they just can't help it. I love it. I love it.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 44:08
And there's

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 44:17
I do too. It's it's very it's very interesting. And it and in the Midwest, it's it's the story of our history. Like these tractors are all over the world, but they really belong to the Midwest. You know what I mean? And a lot of these companies came, you know, they were they were headquartered here in the Midwest, you know. Alice Chalmers was, you know, West Allis, you know, really Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Oliver was you know, f at one time all the way down in Indiana and then really when they were making their tractors. They were in Charles City, Iowa. J you know, J D was Quad Cities and Waterloo and Otumwa and they even I think they have a plant for one of their implements up in Wisconsin somewhere. case I H I think. What didn't Deering McCormick, which I which so Farmall, that was another big one. yeah. I think Farmall and McCormick, they didn't they merge first and then they went they became part of Ksi H. But they I think they start out in Chicago or something like that, and that and Rock Island I think did a lot of the manufacturing for Farmall. In fact, I'm pretty sure my grandpa took a field trip there when he was in high school FFA the to go see the manufacturing. But like I said, but these are all

Nicolas Lirio 45:38
Spew out of people.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 45:39
Yeah, there it's just it's the but it's a story of the Midwest, right? Yeah. And getting back getting back let me finish my point. I know I'm tired and I'm rambling, but but I think about this a lot like why couldn't they all have just stayed as their independent companies? But it's just the way of capitalism. And I don't think that I'm not saying that to be critical of capitalism, I do think there are things to criticize capitalism over but I still think it's the best, you know, economic formula that man has come up with yet. but it's it happens to everything. And for all those things to stay independent, when you look at a company within an industry that stays independent, it's oftentimes not because the math makes sense, right? It's because the passion to remain independent is there. You know, like it think about it. For Oliver to still exist today as an independent tractor manufacturer, which in my opinion, of all the tractors I've driven, which is quite a few, Oliver made the best. I mean, it's like it's like a Cadillac difference. The clutch the clutch on Oliver is just wonderful. You enjoy shifting. What name a time you've ever enjoyed shifting in all as Chalmers.

Nicolas Lirio 47:03
It sucks.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 47:04
Yeah, especially the 185s, right? It's like all or nothing. But but I grew up on But the the fact I'm trying or the the yeah, the fact of the matter is someone comes to a company like that who just has a white collar sitting at a desk who's in charge of making this company make money. He's so far removed from the people who founded it and believed in it. It was a good paying job and he had the skill set. She had the skill set to make it work and make it make money. They get offered by White X number of dollars and it only made sense. Yeah, right. It's

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 47:48
can. Exactly. And so it happens it happens in literally every single industry. And to for it to not happen, I mean I guess you could say and I I unlike Nick am more of a regulation friendly kind of guy. And and I would say that is too far if the government steps in and says, No, no tractor companies are allowed to ever sell to other tractor companies. You what I mean? Like that would it just it just wouldn't

Nicolas Lirio 48:03
I know you are

Nicolas Lirio 48:15
Mm L.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 48:17
It wouldn't it would it wouldn't work. And so, while it is sad and while I think it is part of what has crushed the rural economies, I mean think of how many of these tractor dealerships there used to be in these little tiny towns at one time. Not not that long ago, sixty years ago, seventy years ago. deployed a lot of people in these communities. but there were more Right. There were more drawers. Right. And I think the consumer definitely benefited from it because as you were saying earlier, there was just more competition. Well, wasn't that also a reason why Carol liked Alice? Because there was a dealership right there. There was a dealership right there. When you find out why a lot of people are what they are, it's because Grandpa had easy access to that dealership. They were they local. He had a buddy that was in the parts county or something like Well, and it just was close by, you know, if he needed something fixed or something. Yep. But but I just don't think like as much as I wanna just say, Yeah, I wish you know, they would have and I do wish, I d I truly wish that Ford still made tractors and I truly wish that Oliver still made tractors, but it just wasn't meant to be.

Nicolas Lirio 49:28
Yeah. Speaking of part of our history here in the Midwest, any idea where the word tractor w came from?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 49:36
Hmm. Traction and

Nicolas Lirio 49:40
No no, geographic place. It comes from a very specific place. It was named by Hart Par in this city.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 49:49
Heart party. Were they Indianapolis? Just no.

Nicolas Lirio 49:55
You got a guess? No. Charles City, Iowa. Really?

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 49:59
yeah, that's right. The first tractor, right? There's a r there's a sign right outside of Charles City.

Nicolas Lirio 50:01
Yeah, yeah. It it was the first time that that machine was called a tractor. was basically what it was. But yeah. Yeah, it's it interesting fact about Iowa, you know. We we were three miles away from inventing the steel plow and we invented the word tractor. Yeah. So yeah. I I I mean, I'm with you, Ken. It it is just part of how it goes. It mergers and acquisitions, MA is is part of business. And a lot of people don't sell. A lot of people, if you're if people who build companies and it's their baby they don't sell. But then their kids do. You know

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 50:38
Or here's another here's another thing that I think happens a lot in industries is a company isn't doing very well. They've they've they've been really good at the dreaming up the next invention, the you know, the the soundproof cab or the the you know, power shift or whatever. But they like you were saying earlier, Nick, they don't do well with the books. And and I mean that all takes RD. R and D eats up resources. As you said the other day, learning isn't free. Yeah. the the So these companies would get themselves in a way where they had to they weren't they you know they weren't gonna make it. And you look around in in a lot of industries, there's a lot of companies that are just barely surviving. And so You go and you're like, Hey, to your competitors, we're not you know, we got great stuff here, but we you know, we're ready to sell. Yeah. And eventually it's just the one company every single time who's doing well with the books. And

Nicolas Lirio 51:45
They were conservative with their finances, and that company happens to have been for a hundred and fifty years jumping. That's true.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 51:51
But but John Deere didn't buy a lot. Yeah, that's so I mean it was just another company that was doing good enough. Well, with their books that they could they could continue buying these other companies. It makes me wonder how many of these aren't instances of like company predation, like, this one's not doing bad, it's gonna get absorbed into another company and bought out by another company. How many of and it might be zero, just kind of looked at each other and were like, you know, if we're gonna keep up with John Deere and make this next twenty horsepower jump in tractors We're gonna have to pool our resources. And I mean I know there's some some fudgery there.

Nicolas Lirio 52:23
Yeah.

Nicolas Lirio 52:26
I doubt it. I I doubt that's what would happen because biz the people that are at the top of these business they're competitive. Mm-hmm. So they have to really be down.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 52:34
So But I think what you were saying there as far as like you're looking at your neighbors like holy cow, you know, JI case, they're really growing fast here. We gotta we better do something. And one of those steamrolled. You can either invent your way to the top, probably not, or you can start acquiring other small companies and g and and you know, nickel and diamond market share to your to your accounts. And and I think that's probably a big part of it too. You know

Nicolas Lirio 53:01
The Mark Zuckerberg, he gets beat up a lot, but someone did an incredible profile of him recently, and they basically said, like, Mark Zuckerberg success. Yeah, he's a genius, but there's a lot of geniuses out there. he's the last major founder, major business owner from his era that's still in it. Everyone from the early 2000s no longer still in it, and and he's the only like top fifty Forbes. A millennial business owner. Everyone else is yeah, everyone else is Gen X or Gen Z. That crazy. Really? Yeah. There's there's like two there, Gen Z, and the rest Gen X and boomers. So, but yeah. and so he's kind of holding on alone. And they said his secret was that he made a thing and he said, Every day for the rest of my life, I will make this one thing better for everyone. Not better as in like better for humanity, but better as in like better at getting your attention.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 53:55
Well if it wasn't for Marketplace, he would have really missed the mark. Yeah yeah.

Nicolas Lirio 54:00
I I love marketplace. I'm not convinced that Facebook's still a net positive, you know, but but the point being like he's like an inventor. You know what I mean? Steve Jobs was an inventor, and then Tim Cook came in and just made money off of things that Steve Jobs invented. Isn't that interesting? Like Steve Jobs was such an insane inventor that for 20 years after he's been gone, Apple's like still a top five company all the time.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 54:24
Yeah, just isn't Apple trying to circle back to the iPod? No. Wouldn't this be crazy if we just had this little thing that you didn't have to cook hook to the internet in your pocket and had your music on it? What? Yeah. That's not even quite analog.

Nicolas Lirio 54:34
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Everything Yeah, that's true. It's not not technically at all. Everything that showing your age Apple has tried in the last fifteen years just hasn't worked. You know, I'm I'm curious to see how it goes. So today, John Deere is worth forty five point seven billion dollars. Case NH is in second place, worth eighteen billion dollars. This was end of twenty twenty-five. And Agco is worth ten point one billion dollars. They actually fell dramatically by thirteen. percent over two years leading up to 2025. That's where the major tractor companies are. Again, there's only three of them here in the western part of the world. we'll leave it at that. For everyone who's curious that's watching on YouTube and you're like, you guys are filthy. What happened? We have a we're we're gonna do a podcast, we're gonna do a vlog, but we're gonna do a podcast actually like walking through how hard

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 55:27
I'm always filthy. In fact, one one one one of our podcasts, someone commented on YouTube, Kent's hat looks like it fell in a vat of oil. Fun fact, it did. And his head was in it collectively. You know, like over many weeks. In fact, I put that hat on the this morning. I'm like, nah, this needs washed. And I put this one on instead.

Unidentified speaker 55:33
But.

Nicolas Lirio 55:36
Ha ha ha.

Nicolas Lirio 55:49
Dude, the the vlog and the I it is like you couldn't make this up for television what we've had to do the last few weeks to get harvested.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 55:58
And if there are any producers out there listening, leave us alone, we don't want it.

Nicolas Lirio 56:02
Real live TV. We really appreciate y'all. Don't forget to check out the forum. Wait!

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 56:10
You're gonna wrap this up. I got a question because I'm never on coffee time. When did you guys stop asking people if there was one thing they could change about the world? Yeah, Nick just kind of stopped doing it. Yeah, Nicholas. I was thinking we need to do some more we need to do some more listener interaction too. I think we should go back to like sending in your questions. Or like maybe our favorite comment on an episode or something like that. Like, you know, we'll give you a little seat or something. We're trying to get Nicholas to start a Prairie Farm Podcast Facebook group so we can like keep the

Nicolas Lirio 56:27
Sending in the question.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 56:38
The running jokes roll and build community. But look at the look on his face.

Nicolas Lirio 56:42
I'm at eighty one hours, man, for the week. I don't know what to tell ya.

Nicolas Lirio 56:52
Ne next week we're gonna announce who got the marketing manager position and he is gonna help with stuff. Or she.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 57:00
But write in with your best prairie question or a comment on tractor history.

Nicolas Lirio 57:06
Yeah and and Kent's gonna sit down for an hour and research write out a good blog.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 57:10
No, no, no, no. We'll choose anything. We just want to hear your stream. We'll send you we'll send you a pack of what, short short pollinator?

Nicolas Lirio 57:19
What's

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 57:22
Yeah, best question or comment. That's the workhorse. Yeah, sure.

Nicolas Lirio 57:28
Yeah, yeah. Some tall grass. Social at the prairie farm dot com. Guys, I'm trying to go home. It is nine PM. I'm not I

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 57:37
I got a three hour drive and I'm trying to keep these guys here.

Nicolas Lirio 57:39
I need to go shower.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 57:42
And we apologize if the quality kind of sucks because we're so tired lately.

Nicolas Lirio 57:46
Don't don't Kent this was the highest quality. Yeah.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 57:48
I really wanted to do like a a rapid fire name as many old tractor brands as we possibly could. It'd be kinda interesting to see how many we could hit. I wanted to just sit here and eat pizza on camera, but they said no.

Unidentified speaker 58:02
You

Nicolas Lirio 58:03
yeah, Judd has a bad habit. He doesn't smack when he but if he's like really excited while he's eating food, he'll just start talking with food in his mouth. It's so weird.

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 58:11
Trying to stay away from that. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and wrap

Kent Boucher or Judd McCullum 58:19
Sub sub.