The Great Depression that caused so much trouble in the world during the 1930s ended only with the boom caused by World War II. For American farmers however, the downturn began shortly after World War ...

When we talk about farming with mules decades ago, we tend to picture small operations. An Iowa ranch established in 1896 is a noteworthy exception. William P. Adams was an unlikely farmer. Born in ...

During World War II, gasoline was rationed. Using ration books like this one, motorists were limited to a weekly allowance of gasoline, although farmers and truckers could get all the fuel they needed ...

The use of a pretty face has a long and successful history in the field of commercial art. Here, the image of a sweet country girl is used to market cream separators. In an effort to compete with ...

When it comes to lawn work, today’s homeowner barely breaks a sweat. Lawn work has become a highly mechanized activity, complete with self-propelled power lawn mowers, lawn tractors and an endless ...

The farm my family bought during the Depression had a house that had eight rooms and the proverbial path. We had no electricity, which meant we had no running water, which meant we had no bathroom, ...

Jim Robinson’s (Derby, Conn.) well-preserved and fully functional HE Payloader dating to the early 1950s. The simple curves in the loader arms increased wheel clearance, allowed for larger carry loads ...

This New Holland Model 320 is representative of later, more streamlined hay balers that used an in-line plunger. The New Holland Model 66, introduced in 1953, was the industry's first PTO-powered ...

No. 9 McCormick-Deering mowers were very popular in the northern plains states and are a popular working relic for horse enthusiasts. When McCormick and Deering first merged, some of the new company's ...

A drawing showing the operation of an early steam shovel. The steam shovel was controlled by two men: the engine man and cranes man. The former was stationed near the engine, the latter on a small ...

To the farmer, the invention of the tractor was almost as important as the invention of the reaper. It was Cyrus Hall McCormick’s reaper, introduced in 1831, that initiated the power farming era, when ...

A walking plow and a pair of mules, not plowing very deep, but turning over the sod. The expert plowman has nice, straight furrows. In the middle ages, an acre was first defined as the amount of land ...