There were two different Ney companies in Canton in the late 1800s and early 1900s, both making hay tools such as barn hay forks, carriers and track.

Seventy years ago, the first of many millions of Jeeps saw the light of day. The origin of the sturdy little vehicles, which were universally used by all the allied armed forces during World War II and Korea, leads back to nearby Butler, Pa. The Austin automobile had been developed by Englishman Herbert Austin, who [...]

Anyone tried to buy a new work truck lately? If you have, you’ve probably come to the realization that truck manufacturers don’t consider trucks to be work vehicles any more. They add so many amenities that the average pickup truck today is much more luxurious than a top of the line Cadillac was fifty years [...]

Many years ago, Nancy and I attended a tractor show at Malabar Farm, probably put on by the Richland County Steam Threshers. Established by conservationist and author Louis Bromfield in 1939, and his home until he died in 1956, Malabar Farm is now an Ohio State Park. Finally! Anyway, in those days I had only [...]

As a long, cold winter finally winds down, I was thinking about how comfortable most of us are in our homes with modem heating plants, thermo pane windows, and fully insulated walls and ceilings. Even though fuel costs have gone up, and will probably continue to climb, all we really have to do when we’re [...]

The state of agriculture in this country was still quite primitive in 1840, but many farmers were beginning to realize the farming practices of their fathers and grandfathers were long past their use-by-date. These progressive agriculturists were hungry to learn new ways of doing things and, to feed this hunger, there was a huge growth [...]

On Jan. 2, 2011, at the ripe old age of 96, Harold Brock from Waterloo, Iowa, died peacefully at his home. So what, you ask? Design Well, because Harold Brock was in on the design phase of two of the most popular farm tractors in U.S. history — and for two completely different manufacturers. Harold [...]

Today we don’t think of Ohio as being “The West,” although it was 170 years ago. I have bound volumes of an Albany, N.Y. farm paper, called The Cultivator, from 1840 and 1841, that contain a series of Letters from the West. These were sent to the paper by a traveler from Onondaga County, New [...]

(Author’s Note: The following story is the only work of fiction I’ve ever written and was originally published in the Farm and Dairy on Dec. 24, 1992. I based my characters on real people: Lig, the elf who took care of the reindeer, was named for Dr. John Liggett, DVM. Sal, the Farmall advocate, after [...]

Blue moon/you saw me standing alone/without a dream in my heart/without a love of my own. — Lyrics from a 1934 song by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart There was a full moon Nov. 21. No big deal, you say, there’s a full moon in most every month. However, this one is what the Maine [...]