FARMINGTON – “Fantastic” was the word of the day Saturday at the Farmington Fairgrounds during the three-day Maine Antique Tractor Club Tractor Festival, the largest event of its kind in Maine, organizers said.

Not only was it a “Gathering of the Orange” – the slogan of Allis-Chalmer tractor club members – but, among the nearly 400 tractors displayed, there were also red ones, green ones, yellows, blacks, whites, grays, and age-altered hues.

“This turned out to be fantastic,” co-organizer and chief problem-solver Richard Larrabee of Windham said while tooling around the tractor-lined grounds in a golf cart. “We’ve had a real good showing. We’ve got 125 Allis-Chalmers. That’s what we’re featuring, but we’ve got every make you can imagine.”

He estimated Saturday’s crowd to be between 2,000 and 3,000 by about 2:30 p.m. The event attracted tractor owners from across the nation and as far away as England and Holland. About 200 people watched a tractor-pull contest while many others examined Allis-Chalmers, John Deeres, International McCormick Farmalls, Olivers, Fords, Massey-Harris tractors, Cases, Cockshutts, and more.

Carl Holbrook of New Vineyard brought a red 1950 McCormick Farmall to the show that he and Scott Gray of Chesterville restored. Holbrook’s grandparents bought it brand new in 1950, then his now 91-year-old grandmother, Sylvia Holbrook, also of New Vineyard, gave the rusty hulk to him six years ago.

The festival also featured tractor-driven equipment, like a wood saw and splitter, rock crusher, and what are called one-lunger engines.

Mixing it up noise-wise with the rock crusher was a nearby oil-field engine from Pennsylvania that repeatedly made loud thump-whoosh-click sounds while rocking its flatbed trailer back and forth beside owner Tim Mayberry of Sebago.

Mayberry said the rig, which used to run an oil well, has a 105-year-old cylinder and a 125-year-old steam engine base. Most people weren’t familiar with it.

Several also weren’t familiar with Pete Crosby’s home-built twin-engine Bolens lawn-and-garden tractor either. The Augusta man said he built it last winter, combining 1972 and 1974 20-horsepower engines under the hood, and rigging it to operate with either one engine or both, using a clutch system.

“The comments about it today have been unreal. Some people ask, ‘Can you buy one of those?’ ‘Nope,’ I said. I’m a farmer and farmers build a lot of their own stuff,” Crosby said.

He also brought six other vintage – at least 30 years old – lawn-and-garden tractors to the show, including one little red and green machine he’d restored but didn’t know the name of, so he dubbed it a “What’s It.”

“It had five different colors and looked pretty sad when I got it. It’s got a 12-cycle Wisconsin engine with a rope start. I’ve been waiting for someone to come along and tell me what it is, and this morning a guy selling parts told me it’s a 1950 Garden Master, so now I’ve got to change the name of it,” Crosby said.

Beside him, Allis-Chalmer club Vice President Elon Hertzfield of Brooklyn, Conn., sat astride his own 1964 Simplicity Landlord tractor, which was parked beside his other tractor, a 1972 Simplicity 3410.

“We came for the Gathering of the Orange, and it’s been fantastic,” Hertzfield said.

Gates open today at 8, with lawn-and-garden tractor-pulling contests starting at 8:30 a.m. followed by tractor games, another parade of tractors, and a stone-boat tractor pull at 1:30 p.m.