Growing up on a farm, I recall that we were living close to poverty as well. But my father was an early adopter into the 1960s green revolution of chemicals in agriculture. He doubled his crop output immediately. Because other farmers were slower to adopt, prices stayed high--and he made a lot of money in the first 3-4 years of revolution. He put those profits back into the farm, which helped when prices fell to reflect the new crop outputs Canada and the USA were having.

The New Holland bale wagon was one of those investments. But five years later, no farmer in my region was hiring crews to haul bales from the field. New Holland made a lot of money. I think they had a patent on that machine for no other manufacturer built one.

When I was six years old, we were poor. When I was 12, we were much richer. My father bought a Chrysler Imperial.