Victor Potato Digger - Keremeos, BC - Old Agricultural Equipment on Waymarking.com

Hiding in the orchard behind the many tractors is this big hunk of iron and steel AKA a potato digger. Moody & Sons Co. Ltd. were the manufacturers of this spud digger, likely sometime in the early 1900s. It's a real "Rube Goldberg" looking contraption that was ground driven and dug the spuds with rotating arms which ostensibly dug the spuds and flung them to one side.

I can't for the life of me see how this machine would ever have been able to dig deep spuds in hard soil. Possibly part of the operation of the machine was in the actual growing method used - plant shallow and hill mightily. I once saw an old photo of one of these at work. It was pulled by a pair of 2,000 pound oxen.<

Matthew Moody & Sons Company, the manufacturer, was headquartered in Terrebonne, Quebec. The M. Moody Company began production in 1845 and continued in production until at least the mid 1920s. They were probably best known for their threshers, though they made a range of farm implements, including mowers, grain binders, rakes, lever harrows, disc harrows, corn shellers, silage cutters, root cutters, manure spreaders, feed grinders, rollers, saws, seeders, tread mills, etc. It was reported in 1923 that they had introduced a new tractor powered potato digger.