The engine on the Versatile swather back at the ranch had a low, humming, thrumming sound. You could hear it even if you couldn’t see it.
The table and reel made it front heavy, so the single back wheel would occasionally bounce off the ground in the rough spots. Many a time I’d spot Dad or one of my sisters, riding that swather like a jockey, thrumming their way through haying or harvest.
I don’t recall what model it was but it looked very like one of the swathers on the cover of the book Versatile Tractors, A Farm Boy’s Dream, which landed on the desk last week.
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It’s a picture of none other than Peter Pakosh, founder of Versatile, who appears to be wearing a suit and fedora while piloting said swather through an alfalfa crop.
Nostalgia made me open the book, but content made me read it through – even though I don’t ordinarily hold farm equipment books to the bosom.
It’s the story of Pakosh, an imaginative and industrious Saskatchewan farm boy who founded a company and manufactured equipment well known and used by farmers. His is the company now known as Buhler Versatile Inc., based in Winnipeg.
There are many “prairie boy makes good” stories, but few are told in books with such rich benefits from memoirs, photos and the personal touch of the author, who is Pakosh’s grandson Jarrod Pakosh.
The elder Pakosh, who died in 1999, tells much of his own story through memoirs that are woven into almost every page.
Some of it is pioneer lore about growing up on the farm using on-the-hoof horsepower. Some of it reflects well on the good old days, when bankers took a chance on people instead of on spreadsheets.
And much of it engenders plain old admiration for the grit of a Mikado, Sask., farm boy who manufactured augers from his Toronto basement and built a multimillion-dollar partnership based on a handshake.
Through the company Pakosh founded with his brother-in-law, Roy Robinson, they invented and manufactured various lines of augers, sprayers, swathers, discers, cultivators, combines and tractors. John Deere, Agco and Hesston are all said to have coveted the company.
Ford, New Holland and Fiat each played ownership roles at one time or another.
Historians always tell us that history enriches us. Now that I know some Versatile history through this book, I’ll think more fondly about that old swather.
More details on Versatile Tractors, A Farm Boy’s Dream can be found at www.producer.com.
