His great-grandfather cleared large blocks of land and had eight sons and a few daughters to whom he gave land.<\/p>\n
At one point, there were several family farms in the area, but now only two remain, including Dalgety\u2019s Corner.<\/p>\n
Neil Dalgety grew up on a Ng\u0101tea dairy farm, and his brother then farmed at Dalgety\u2019s Corner while Dalgety bought 250 acres (101.171ha) of sheep and beef country up in the hills.<\/p>\n
This property is the home of Dalgety\u2019s tractor and machinery collection.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always loved the older tractors on the farm as a kid,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI preferred them to the new ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he has fully restored several machines, Dalgety enjoys the challenge of getting them up and running rather than the restoration side.<\/p>\n
His grandfather Jim Dalgety bought a new 1949 Fordson Major E27N tractor, which Neil remembers well.<\/p>\n
The \u201cE\u201d stands for England, where they were made in Dagenham.<\/p>\n
The \u201c27\u201d stands for the 27 hp from the four-cylinder petrol engine.<\/p>\n
It has three forward gears and one reverse gear.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a general farm tractor and was a good size for that time,\u201d Dalgety says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was well used on the family farms.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 1949 Fordson Major E27N. Photo \/ Catherine Fry<\/p>\n
Originally, the tractor had rear cast-iron wheels with steel lugs and was perfect for clearing tracks up on the hill property.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father, Selwyn, then took off the steel wheels and put on rubber tyres to use it down on the plains.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the rear steel wheels were stolen while up at Dalgety\u2019s Mangatarata farm and the front steel wheels were rolled down the hill by the thieves.<\/p>\n
Rubber tyres replaced the original steel lugged cast iron ones. Photo \/ Catherine Fry<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that, my grandfather sold it, and it sadly went out of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n
When adult Neil became involved in the Hauraki Vintage Machinery Club, he realised that one of the members had his grandfather\u2019s Fordson in their collection.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all thought that it had been abandoned up in the hills when it was sold, but after all that time, it had been safe and looked after.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the owner sold his collection, Dalgety didn\u2019t hesitate to buy the Fordson.<\/p>\n
His father, Selwyn, said, \u201cYou\u2019re just like your grandfather\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dalgety doesn\u2019t see it like that. As far as he\u2019s concerned, the tractor has just \u201ccome home\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His great-grandfather cleared large blocks of land and had eight sons and a few daughters to whom he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2840,1863,3390,6326,138,2841,3685,32255,12026,31178,126530,6637,16655,293,78,8454,296,121522,6187,663,3234,111,43,139,69,4517,6289,126529,762,3175,544,6182,1361,7563,29687,27627,1524,102,121521,379],"class_list":["post-207339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-across","tag-back","tag-best","tag-biggest","tag-business","tag-country","tag-events","tag-familys","tag-farmer","tag-favourites","tag-fordson","tag-gave","tag-glimpse","tag-his","tag-in","tag-including","tag-into","tag-livelihoods","tag-lives","tag-looks","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-past","tag-readers","tag-reunites","tag-review","tag-rural","tag-some","tag-stories","tag-that","tag-those","tag-tractor","tag-vintage","tag-waikato","tag-with","tag-yarns","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}