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Even tractors are evolving
Urbanized region just means new strategies for sales
Friday, Dec. 5, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL
Maurice Lusby Sr., owner of Lusby Motors in Prince Frederick, said the family business has had to change with the times as Calvert has shifted from agricultural to residential.
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Guy Brothers Implements started its tractor dealership in 1904 in Clements.
The newer kids on the block, Lusby Motor Co. in Prince Frederick and Hugh C. Gardiner in Faulkner, both started their businesses in the 1920s.
One thing these businesses all have in common is that they started as something else, and have evolved through the years to keep up with the changes that the increasing urbanization of the Southern Maryland counties is bringing.
"As late as the 1990s, we would sell 50 percent farm tractors and 50 percent rural lifestyle tractors," Perry Guy Jr. of Guy Brothers said. "Now we sell 85 percent compact tractors, and only 15 percent utility, or farm, tractors."
A rural lifestyle tractor, Guy explained, is made for the person who might have 10 to 15 acres, but whose main income is from another job, not farming. "Rural lifestyle people are part-time farmers who want to keep their roots," Guy said. "They may have a few horses and cows and a garden they take care of."
The Guy Brothers started their business when Claude and Agnes Guy started their general store. In 1918, Claude added a Chevrolet dealership, after selling Ford products for five years. The store and their house burned down in a fire in 1951.
After the fire, the Guy family began to sell Oliver tractors, and in 1961, branched out to sell Massey Ferguson tractors, which is what they continue to service and sell today.
"We have continued to see steady growth since 1988," Guy said. "We have changed with the times and now sell skid loaders, hay equipment, excavators and small track machines. But our bread and butter continues to be the Massey Ferguson line."
Guy is optimistic about his business, even as St. Mary's County keeps changing, and the people are changing with it.
John Morgan of Piney Point has been a Guy Brothers customer for 25 or 30 years. "I come here to get Bobcat parts," Morgan said. "If they can't get them for me, then they will order them."
At Lusby Motors in Prince Frederick, customers can buy chain saws, weed eaters and leaf blowers. Back in the 1970s, they could have also purchased a gift from part of the store or a new appliance, as Maurice Lusby's mother, Julia, ran a gift center beside her husband's John Deere dealership.
Lusby Motor Co. in downtown Prince Frederick was founded in 1921 by Maurice Lusby Sr. and is run today by Maurice Lusby III. "Our business started as a filling station," Lusby said. "Then we added a hardware store, which burned down in 1935. We also sold Dodge cars and trucks."
It was also in the 1930s that the Lusby family began to service and sell John Deere agricultural products. In the 1980s the amount of farming in Calvert County began to decline rapidly, according to Lusby.
"My father began to devote most of his time and energy to the hardware store part of the business," Lusby said.
With the number of Calvert County residents increasing, the number of customers that needed tractors went up as well.
"We started to sell a lot of tractors to new people and contractors," Lusby said. "A lot of people who had horse farms would buy our products. A person that owns a pleasure horse would need something to take the manure out, bush hog the fields and grade a road.
"We probably sell around 30 large tractors a year," he said. "Since we service what we sell, and some of the tractors with diesel engines may last 50 to 60 years, we see a lot of the tractors that we have sold return to us over the years."
Lusby said the biggest change is the number of new faces he sees walking in his door.
"Things have changed tremendously in the county," Lusby said. "When I started, I would recognize 95 percent of the people who would walk in the door. Now I would say I recognize 25 percent of the faces. So many new folks."
Lusby said the addition of the gas and nuclear power plants has also changed the look of the county. "We saw the wages increase, and also the demand for amenities that urban people ask for and eventually receive," Lusby said.
Lusby said that in his lifetime, he has seen the number of large farms decrease. "I would say that farms which are 300 acres or bigger are rare now," Lusby said. "I would say there are only four in the entire county now."
Lusby said he thinks his business will continue to evolve and survive for the next generation. "I am still here because I am strictly hard-headed," Lusby said. "I enjoy the retail relationships I have with my customers, and this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. The economy is not what it should be now, but we will take it in stride."
Progress has also changed the way the store does business.
"It used to be that every customer had a clerk who would wait on them, ring them up and write a ticket up for them," Lusby said. "Now we have debit cards and credit cards, and checks are almost obsolete. You don't even have to bring a part in here for us to be able to find you a new part. You don't even have to know what a part is called. We now have a computer program called Smart Part, and you can pull up whatever tractor you want a part for, and a picture of the entire tractor and all its parts will pop up. You just need to point to the part you need and then we can get it for you."
On a Wednesday afternoon, Frank Krauss was browsing through the selection of leaf blowers at the store.
"I have been coming here since 1954, and Maurice and his family are just great," Krauss said. "The service here is also very good."
Krauss is a typical Lusby Motor customer. "I own eight acres, and most of that is trees," Krauss said. "That's why I am looking at blowers today. I bought my John Deere tractor here about seven or eight years ago. It is just a little garden tractor, but I have a big yard, so that's why I am looking for a leaf blower for it."
Lusby hopes to continue to keep the business in the family.
"I hope we stay here and continue to be family owned, but who knows?" Lusby said. "Right now my brother, Charlie Lusby, is the co-owner, and Wes Lusby works on our repairs and warranties."
Hugh C. Gardiner lll is another link in the chain of Gardiners who have been in business in Faulkner since 1924.
At the entrance of the store, Hugh C. Gardiner Inc., along with fliers advertising hay for sale, there are announcements about where a customer can get a flu shot or get a tire repaired.
Hugh Gardiner Jr. started working for his uncle, Carl, in 1924. Carl Gardiner had a general store behind the train station in Faulkner. The family business started selling Farmall tractors in 1927, and moved to the present location on U.S. 301 in the 1950s.
In the early 1990s Hugh Gardiner started selling Kubota tractors.
"We started selling them because they were the first manufacturer to come out with a small four-wheel drive tractor," Gardiner said. "A lot of home owners and commercial landscapers, along with some farmers, would buy our tractors."
The Farmall tractor that Gardiner sold had a one-row cultivator, which made it good for tobacco crops.
"In my father and grandfather's time, tobacco was the main crop," Gardiner said. "You didn't need a high-horsepower, large tractor to raise tobacco. Occasionally we would sell a large tractor or a combine to a farmer who was doing corn or soybeans. Now we no longer have the tobacco farmers. When this business first stated there were about 500 farm customers we used to see regularly. Now I would say there are less than 100 in Southern Maryland."
Gardiner said most of the customers he sells tractors to now are owners of farmettes and that he sells about 100 tractors a year. He said for many people, a utility tractor is a handy piece of equipment.
"You can use it as either a truck or a tractor," Gardiner said. "If you have a vineyard, you still need to cultivate between the rows. If you raise hay, which is something a lot of people do now that they no longer raise tobacco, then you could use it to bale hay."
