Recent years have seen an influx of new rural property owners. Homeowners in densely populated areas used proceeds from the sales of their homes to buy tracts of land in small towns and rural communities.

Jason Smith and his wife, Brooke, seized their opportunity.

The couple and their young daughter had been farming 5 acres north of Selma, Alabama, where Jason grew up, while he worked as a manager at a local GM dealership. Thinking others might find a release from the stress of the pandemic, he began posting videos of family life on Cog Hill Farm (named after the street it was on). To date, the Cog Hill Family Farm channel on YouTube has nearly 200,000 subscribers, from all over the world!

By 2021, the Smiths had done well enough for Jason to leave his job of 22 years and put the farm on the market. It sold, to a couple from Oregon, in one day. That allowed the Smiths to expand operations to a 40-acre former farm in Billingsley — with one catch.

“The place hadn’t been worked in years,” says Jason. “The soil is a mixture of sand, clay and a ton of gravel and rock, and it was really compacted.” The solution was a Bush Hog tiller that he purchased from Safford Trading Company in nearby Safford.

“The tiller broke the soil up to allow us to plant and add compost or whatever else we need to add,” he says. “Our garden is doing very, very well.” Just another example of how Bush Hog products allow customers to work the farm and fulfill their dreams of living off their land.

Meanwhile, Bush Hog machinery appears to be as popular among dealers as it is among landowners like the Smiths.

“We do not hear complaints about Bush Hog products,” says Erin Heiman, who handles marketing for Westside Implement in largely rural Clark, South Dakota. “It’s the quality of their products, which is amazing from an owner standpoint but also from a dealership standpoint.”

At the end of the day, of course, it’s the owner’s standpoint that makes Bush Hog equipment legendary.

Having grown up in a farm family in Greenville County, South Carolina, Robbie Ponder works three Bush Hog rotary cutters he inherited from his father, plus a rotary tiller, for the freelance field work he does for a living.

“I’m a farmer without a farm,” says Ponder, 43. “I mow pastures, spread fertilizer and lime, cut hay. I have been in places I probably shouldn’t have been in with these rotary cutters — some of them are older than I am — but they’ve held up. You can count on them to work when you need them.”

Ponder also appreciates that Bush Hog stands by their products and that his Alabama-based customer support team is accessible when he needs them.

For example, he said that after he bought a 3308 (a multi-spindle rotary cutter) from JD Tractor Stuff in Greer, South Carolina, he called about a minor issue.

“Some places will sell you something and they don’t remember you after you bought it,” he notes. “But Bush Hog took care of it — all I had to do was bring it in! I was very, very happy.”

From those who are new to working the land to generational farmers, from small acreages to large farms, Bush Hog provides the products to help transform property into a land of opportunity.

For more information about Bush Hog equipment and dealers, visit bushhog.com.