Find farming history books you'll love

How John Deere Tractors & Implements Work

How implements and tractors work to produce crops and livestock is described and illustrated.

The John Deere Century

In <i>The</i> <i>John Deere Century,</i> acclaimed author and photographer Randy Leffingwell uses his unique brand of storytelling to chronicle the company and the tractors that have carried the distinctive green and yellow livery for the past century.<br><br> Iconic John Deere tractors ranging from the spartan Waterloo Boy to the Model AOS, and from German and Argentine models to the acclaimed New Generation tractors are featured in this celebration of industrial tractor design. Loaded with photographs, both modern and vintage, and excellently written info, this book will have John Deere fans salivating.

John Deere Plowing Pioneer

John Deere - the name is known all over the country. Did you know John Deere is more than just a tractor company? John Deere was a blacksmith from Vermont! His invention of the self-polishing steel plow was just the beginning of a long and successful career. <br>These popular readers include easy-to-read information, fun facts and trivia, humor, activities and a whole lot more. They are great for ages 7-12 (grades 2-6), because although simple, these readers have substance and really engage kids with their stories. They are great for social studies, meeting state and national curriculum standards, individual and group reading programs, centers, library programs, and have many other terrific educational uses. Get the Answer Key for the Quizzes! Click HERE.

You Can Farm The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise

Have you ever desired, deep within your soul, to make a comfortable full-time living from a farming enterprise? Too often people dare not even vocalize this desire because it seems absurd. It's like thinking the unthinkable.<br><br>After all, the farm population is dwindling. It takes too much capital to start. The pay is too low. The working conditions are dusty, smelly and noisy: not the place to raise a family. This is all true, and more, for most farmers.<br><br>But for farm entrepreneurs, the opportunities for a farm family business have never been greater. The aging farm population is creating cavernous niches begging to be filled by creative visionaries who will go in dynamic new directions. As the industrial agriculture complex crumbles and our culture clambers for clean food, the countryside beckons anew with profitable farming opportunities.<br><br>While this book can be helpful to all farmers, it targets the wannabes, the folks who actually entertain notions of living, loving and learning on a piece of land. Anyone <i>willing</i> to dance with such a dream should be able to assess its assets and liabilities; its fantasies and realities. "Is it really possible for me?" is the burning question this book addresses.

Power Trains 5ED

In this book "power trains" is a broad term with the prime interest in transmissions used to transmit power on farm and industrial machines, especially those made by John Deere Co.

Hydraulics

Fields of Farmers Interning, Mentoring, Partnering, Germinating

America’s average farmer is sixty years old. When young people can’t get in, old people can’t get out. Approaching a watershed moment, our culture desperately needs a generational transfer of millions of farm acres facing abandonment, development, or amalgamation into ever-larger holdings. Based on his decades of experience with interns and multigenerational partnerships at Polyface Farm, farmer and author Joel Salatin digs deep into the problems and solutions surrounding this land- and knowledge-transfer crisis. This book empowers aspiring young farmers, midlife farmers, and nonfarming landlords to build regenerative, profitable agricultural enterprises.

Dirt to Soil One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture

<b>“A regenerative no-till pioneer.”—NBC News<br></b><br><b><i>“</i>We need to reintegrate livestock and crops on our farms and ranches, and Gabe Brown shows us how to do it well.”—Temple Grandin, author of <i>Animals in Translation</i></b><br><b><br>“<i>Dirt to Soil</i> is the [regenerative farming] movements’s holy text.”—<i>The Observer</i></b><br><br>Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown—in an effort to simply survive—began experimenting with new practices he’d learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture.<br><br>Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture. He switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crops mixes, and changed his grazing practices. In so doing Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life—starting with the soil and working his way up, one plant and one animal at a time.<br><br>In <i>Dirt to Soil</i> Gabe Brown tells the story of that amazing journey and offers a wealth of innovative solutions to restoring the soil by laying out and explaining his “five principles of soil health,” which are:<br><br><br><br><ul><li>Limited Disturbance</li><li>Armor</li><li>Diversity</li><li>Living Roots</li><li>Integrated Animals</li></ul><br>The Brown’s Ranch model, developed over twenty years of experimentation and refinement, focuses on regenerating resources by continuously enhancing the living biology in the soil. Using regenerative agricultural principles, Brown’s Ranch has grown several inches of new topsoil in only twenty years! The 5,000-acre ranch profitably produces a wide variety of cash crops and cover crops as well as grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured laying hens, broilers, and pastured pork, all marketed directly to consumers.<br><br>The key is how we think, Brown says. In the industrial agricultural model, all thoughts are focused on killing things. But that mindset was also killing diversity, soil, and profit, Brown realized. Now he channels his creative thinking toward how he can get more <i>life</i> on the land—more plants, animals, and beneficial insects. “The greatest roadblock to solving a problem,” Brown says, “is the human mind.”<br><b><br>See Gabe Brown―author and farmer―in the award-winning documentaries <i>Kiss the Ground </i>and <i>Common Ground</i>!</b>

John Deere Tractors A History of the John Deere Farm Tractor

John Deere Model B Restoration Guide

The popular and prolific John Deere Model B is covered from front pedestal to drawbar in this useful guide. Exploded parts diagrams and archival and modern photography help you figure out the correct parts, paint, and assembly for your styled or unstyled John Deere Model B. Charts and tables list serial and part numbers as well as major manufacturing changes. All stled and unstyled model variations except the Lindeman crawler are covered, including the Model B, BR, BO, BI, BN, BW, BNH, and BWH, as well as the rare BW-40 and experimental HX. A brief history of the Model B's evolution and variations is included, with archival phorographs of each type in the fields and on the farm.The John Deere Model B Restoration Guide is a great addition to the libray of any John Deere restorer, collector, or enthusiast.