CARLINVILLE, Ill. — Chicken and noodles, strawberries and tractors provided a winning combination for the Macoupin County Agricultural Society.

During a hot Memorial Day weekend, tractor collectors, vendors and tourists gathered to honor War Veterans with an occasional cannon blast, music, food and more.

The show included a mansion tour, a blacksmith shop, a country store, a new print shop, toys and tractors. Almost all brands of tractors were represented.

Kent and Jane Elliott, Godfrey, Ill., sold raffle tickets for a pedal tractor to raise money for their Country Day Antique Tractor Show on Oct. 7 in Godfrey, Ill. The Elliotts brought along their International Harvester 330. The little tractor was purchased from a Columbia, Mo. collector.

“We were at a Macon, Mo. show and met him,” Kent Elliott said. “We knew he had tractors for sale. I was looking for an IH 350 utility tractor.”

Rather than a 350, the collector had the 330. “He didn’t know a lot about the 330,” Elliott added.

But Elliott decided it would fit the bill. When he got the tractor home and did some research, he learned what a unique tractor he had bought.

“When I got home, I found out it was a military special tractor that IH had never intended to build,” Elliott said. “They used the engine off an IH Super C, rather than an H, so there was less power in the 330 than the 350 utility.”

Irv Wildhagan, a John Deere collector, admired the show’s green tractors much like the 57 he owns in Godfrey. Bud Redeford, a fellow John Deere collector, from nearby Glenarm, Ill., was at the show with his John Deere R.

Part of the fun for all ages was participating in the John Deere tractor parade. Although hot and steamy, this didn’t seem to daunt the collectors from enjoying the revelry until mid-afternoon when they faded away to cooler climes.

The next tractor show for the Macoupin County Agricultural Society will be the third weekend in September.

This farm news was published in the June 7, 2006 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.