when we did little bales our swather, 2 balers and the stackliner(every thing was NH) were all selfpropelled, we had one tractor to farm and one loader tractor.
was looking at a pull rotory but needed more HP in a tractor for the new ones, this old 8500 Heston has about the same hours as my NH 1499 and the price wasn't that bad as a shed and just my place it will last me along time. Plus with only 2 tractors when I get help they are both running while the swather is. Then this summer with no help. I run one tractor on the racke in the morning , then bale with the other in the afternoon then swath a few hour into the evening.
Dad went right from tractor mower probaly over 40 years ago to one of those little 12 ft JD swather , then to a 12ft NH907, reaplaced 14ftNH 1114 then back to a 12ft 1499 which I still have. There was years when we rent other places or I did a little coustom work that we swath close to a 1000 acres a summer, most of it meadow hay of meadow foxtail, garrison, reeds canary grass, red top, alsike clover, carrics and reeds