To give you a better answer you need to elaborate, how much you want to spend, how often you will use it, how big a garden, what type soil.
I have a 732 BCS that I love.
http://earthtoolsbcs.com/html/walk-behind_tractors.html

as long as you take care of it, an MTD tiller will last you a while. I have a craftsman 14" rear tine, and a friend of mine tilled his entire 3 acre lot with it TWICE.

a front tine tiller will work you to death, especially if the soil is hard. but a front tine allows you to get in closer to things and do stuff like turn a compost heap, that you just can't do with a rear tine.

Honda makes very fine tillers if you are willing to spend the money for a high quality unit. What David said, I was not long figuring out why dad gave me the job of tilling clay with the old MTD front tine LOL.

stroh,

I use a mid-tined Merry Tiller, and have been using Merry Tillers since the early seventies. In a mid-tined tiller, the weight of the tiller is balanced over the tines, which has several good effects. The weight of the tiller works for you, instead of against you, and the tines move the tiller forward, instead of rubber tires. Front-tined tillers look similar to mid-tined tillers, but looks can be deceiving. Their weight is unbalanced, which can make them tiring to use.

Even the little Mantis tillers are effectively mid-tined tillers, because their engines (or electric motors in the case of the electric models) are mounted over the tines, which support the weight of the tiller. It's no accident that little Mantis tillers can till several inches deeper than rear-tined tillers that cost thousands of dollars.

My Merry Tiller can "cruise" at a 12-inch tilling depth, and a lot of the time I let it dig in as deep as 16 inches for extra deep tilling. Its triple reduction transmission and dual V-belt clutch give it unmatchable controllable torque and a deliberate tine speed that can readily deal with rocky soil (which we have). Most rear-tined tillers are hard-pressed to till 6 inches deep, and their extra high tine speeds can make an encounter with a rock very unpleasant. Rear-tined tillers are popular because they can quickly make a garden "look" tilled. But if people had X-ray eyes, they could readily see that the rear-tined tilling job is essentially a "fake" veneer over un-tilled soil. A spade can readily verify that.

When I was a kid on the farm, I used to double-dig our garden with a spade, to till it at twice the usual depth. Now I get the same effect with my Merry Tiller, but much easier and in less time. Deeper topsoil and more root volume make for faster-growing, healthier, more productive plants. And that's what tilling is all about, whether you do it with a spade or a machine.

MM

I second maineman's statement that rear tine tillers have trouble getting deeper than 6 inches. My garden is like rock below 6 inches or so, and that's after being tilled with my Troy-Bilt tiller several times last year. Before that it was like rock on the surface, so there is a kind of victory.
The local Ag Extension Agent quoted a study from back East which showed a tomato with roots to 9 feet, a good bit more than I'm getting.
Norm

I'ma happy BCS 830 owner myself. These higher grade two wheel tractor's are very nice.

Their are several out there, but they are all quite a bit more than the MTD's.

For just a little more you might want to look at Snapper's tiller. They are pretty decent machines.

thanks for the input :). some very good information for me to mull over and educate myself more. very good info on mid tine tillers. i will continue to research all the input. thanks again. stroh

Your original post mentions new so I paused for awhile because new is new. However I have a non MTD tiller so I'll chime in. You can still buy them just not brand new. I really shouldn't say that because lately I've seen two on Ebay that were brand new. I'm talking about an original Troy Bilt Horse tiller. Made before 2001. Original maker named Gardenway. MTD bought the naming rights to Troy Bilt and Gardenway in 2001 so you have to educate yourself with serial# and such. I have a 1985 Horse III and it will last me longer than I'll live and I'm 49 and garden a 1250 sq. foot area. 25 x 50. It pushes snow in the winter, does pretty good at that. Parts are still available even for 1970 models. A manual and basic mechanical skills are all thats needed to restore even a basket case. Ebay has plenty of good ones ready to work without doing anything, just search Troy Bilt spelled exactly that way will turn up many. Other spellings like troybilt, troy-bilt, troy built, don't turn up as many. Everyone that I've ever spoken to that has one is satisfied with them. You'll pay from $400 to a $1000 for a good used one. Unless you still it like I did, $75 and it runs. I've replaced seals, bearings, gears. shafts and such not necassarily because they all needed it but because I had the resourses and it was apart for a seal change. Not hard to work on with written guidence. I'll keep mine forever. Many motor combo's available and easily repowered with another if required. Check them out on ebay youll see excellent all the way to basket cases. Maybe something in your area as shipping would be a problem, 300 lb machine. I do all the work on mine and have never had a snag I couldn't resolve, even removing the wheels from the shaft. Seems that is the hardest part. If left outside wheels rust to shafts. I seen several posts from people asking how to remove those stubborn wheels. REJ2

hi rej2, thanks for the info. i understand where u are coming from. i was looking for a garden tractor a few yrs ago and was ready to buy a new john deere when my wife saw an ad online. to make a long story short i ended up driving a 100 mi and buying an adco allis. it is built like a tank compared to most other tractors. i will check into used better tillers. thanks again. stroh :)

Stroh,

Did you ever think of getting a tiller for your tractor. If that tractor is an AGCO ALLIS lawn tractor, then it is made by Simplicity and has some very good tillers for it. If it is a larger compact or utility tractor you can get a 3 point hitch tiller. Either would be good. Unless you are trying to cultivate in between rows those tractor mounted tillers are quite a bit easier to handle.

I just can't believe that those baby merry tillers are better than a heavy duty rear tine, it makes no sense, how can they get down in hard soil with no weight hardly?

thanks everyone for your responses. i am currently looking into many options. for maine i have a question regarding the merry tillers. i am intrigued by the mid tine engineering. one of the reasons i have considered rear tine is because the old front tine tiller i had did a good job, but my shoulder can no longer take the punisment. have you ever had a front tine tiller and if so, how does the merry tiller handle compared to a front tine tiller.
thanks again, stroh :)

Stroh,

I have never owned or used a front-tined tiller, so I can't compare the difficulty of using one to my mid-tined Merry Tiller. If you have a bad shoulder, you might have trouble with any tiller. Gardenway's advertising campaign for the Troy-Bilt rear-tined tillers claimed that you could operate them with one finger. In my opinion that was deceptive advertising. They also used a cartoon of a guy getting the stars knocked out of him by a front-tined tiller. I guess their engineers thought that the tines had to go on the front or on the rear, and never thought of placing them in the middle.

When you get to the end of a row with a rear-tined tiller, that's when the myth of one-fingered operation comes to an abrupt end. You have quite a job "horsing" a rear-tined tiller around to go back the other way, because it is long and heavy and it isn't easy to raise the tines or turn the tiller. That's definitely not a one-fingered operation, and it wouldn't be at all easy for someone with (or without) a shoulder problem.

By contrast, when I want to turn my Merry Tiller, I can just rock the tiller back to balance the tiller on the drag bar. I use the "foot" of the drag bar as a pivot to rotate the tiller in any direction. By using that technique, I can literally turn it on a dime, with zero turn radius, and the whole maneuver takes only a few seconds.

I'm 74, and operating my Merry Tiller is easy for me, but early on I learned to use my tiller without "fighting" it, and to relax and enjoy letting it do the work, and not me. It takes a week or more of hands-on practice to learn that, which is why so many people who rent tillers for a day or two have a bad experience. They get a death grip on the tiller, as if it were an adversary to fight, instead of a helpful friend. Over the last 40 years, my Merry Tillers have kept me and my shoulders limber, but it's definitely not a one-fingered operation. I wasn't surprised that Troy-Bilt wound up facing bankruptcy with their misleading advertising.

However, for anyone with any kind of physical disability, I would recommend that they do their "farming" from the comfort of a tractor seat and let power steering and hydraulic control levers do the work. I agree with aesanders that you should consider a tractor tiller attachment. Also, a good moldboard plow is poetry in motion.

MM

Never liked front tine tillers. But my troy bilt has reverse so turning mine around is not so bad. I think two of the biggest mistakes when tilling is going to deep to fast, and having poor soil. I get a dump truck load of manure each year and till it in. So if the soil is good it's much easier to till and you get healthier plants and better tasting vegies. I consider tilling a great exercise.

lynxville,

"But my troy bilt has reverse so turning mine around is not so bad."

It might be better yet if you could make the wheel on one side go forward and the wheel on the other side go in reverse.

But tiller makers nowadays are very hesitant to provide any kind of reverse, for fear of lawsuits arising from someone running his tiller in reverse back over himself. In that sense, your reverse feature makes your tiller kind of a "collector's item".

MM

my rear tine tiller turns easy enough. and it operates pretty much on its own. when my friend borrowed it he actully tied the handle down and just walked with it, giving an occassional bump to straighten it out if it started to swerve to teh side.

i have never had experience with teh mid tine units. a front tine WILL work you hard but is more versatile than a rear tine.

a tractor mount is easiest of all on your body.

shop around, find several models you liek, then read up on them on the net. find actual user experiences to find one that will fit your needs.

My rear tine BCS has wheel brakes. Just put the brake on the wheel that you want to turn and it will pretty much turn itself right around. You still have to pick it up a bit, but it isn't that bad.

I'd still look for a rear mont tiller for the AGCO though. If I hadn't already had the tiller when I bought my Deere, Iwould certaily have gotten a rear tine tiller for it. Still might.

Stroh, I currently have one of each, a front tine Parmi, a mid tine Honda F500, and a rear tine Troy Bilt PTO Horse III. In ground that has been previously tilled all work easily enough. Virgin ground is a different story. The rear tine is well suited for this especially if you make a pass or two increasing your depth each time. You can use the Troy with one hand as long as your tilling down a row. Turning is not difficult at the end of a row, I can disengage tines and still have power to the wheels,but it takes both hands. Not sure if this possible with all Troys but it is with the PTO models. Yes I can reverse also with or without tines engaged and have power to the wheels. Mid tine Honda only slightly better than the front tine in unbroken ground. REJ2.