I remember this.
Laying there on the ground, bent and rusted, but that’s what we called a setter. Two people ride on the seats while a tractor pulls down a row. A plow opens the ground and as the machine turns the riders place small plants into mechanical jaws. Wheels rotate the mechanism dropping the plant into the ground, soaking it with water and fertilizer and then covering the roots as it passes.
While I suppose you could have used this to plant acres of tomatoes or other vegetables, on our farm in Kentucky we always used it for tobacco.
As a child all I wanted to do was help. Nothing seemed more helpful or interesting than being big enough to ride the machinery like this. I’d pull tobacco plants from their beds only to watch frustrated as my dad and his help put them in the ground. Of course eventually grew big enough to ride that tobacco setter many summers while the water from the tank sloshed over our shoulders and my father quietly drove the tractor up and down the rows.
It’s a good memory.
