"...The last thing is that taking it off is a bit of a hassle," Li Long said. "It takes at least three people to detach this harvester. That's all right close to home, but for a long trip, the tractor has to go with the harvester attached. If you put it in the trailer, it's a problem if there's nobody at the other end to help mount it."
Even with Li Long's strength, attaching the harvester to the tractor alone was somewhat difficult.
Fortunately, he had thought of a solution. He put a large Wooden Stump in the tractor's trailer. When he needed the harvester, he took it down and set it on the Wooden Stump, then drove the front of the tractor between the support arms on either side of the harvester before getting down to adjust its position and tighten the bolts.
With the Wooden Stump supporting it, there was no need for two people to hold it up while it was secured. But only someone as strong as him could lift the harvester out of the trailer alone and move it onto the Wooden Stump.
As he had said, if the harvester stayed attached to the front of the tractor, it took up some of the power, leaving the tractor's engine with insufficient power for driving and slowing it down.
Tractors at the time were not as advanced as later models. They were a little more primitive, so he could not ask too much of them.
Li Long had harvested several thousand mu with the harvester. At this point, even nationwide, nobody was better qualified to speak about its performance.
Factory Director Du and his people had built the harvester based on Li Long's ideas. They had conducted small-scale trials too, but those had covered only a