- Paperback: 312 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press; 2nd edition (10 July 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226092658
- ISBN-13: 978-0226092652
- Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 15.6 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,729,885 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
To all outward appearances, Mark Underwood is an ordinary Kansas dirt farmer, but in fact he is a mechanical genius, a Thomas Edison of agriculture who has built a revolutionary new reaper that someday may change the way grain is harvested throughout the world. Mark and his cousin Ralph Lagergren, a salesman and marketing specialist, have pooled their disparate talents to bring Mark's reaper to market. Dream Reaper is the story of the Bi-Rotor combine - from paper nearly to production line - a suspenseful, ongoing thirteen-year saga in which the cousins encounter all the obstacles that any inventor faces: the complexities of raising capital and obtaining patents, the technical glitches, the obligatory secrecy, and the toll that any consuming obsession takes on one's private life. Craig Canine, who followed the cousins and their Bi-Rotor team closely for four years, gives us as well the historical context for the phenomenon of Whitey: the enormous changes that America has gone through as it has come of age on the farm and moved to the city. He recounts the reaper wars between Mark's nineteenth-century "ancestors, " the inventors Cyrus McCormick and Obed Hussey; the "tractor battles" between Henry Ford and International Harvester; and that legacy of the chemical warfare production of World War I, the modern pesticide. He shows us how these inventions transformed the Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian society, and led to the creation of agribusiness and to a manufacturing industry dominated today by a few giant corporate players where once there were hundreds of small competitive firms an industry that, ironically, is dauntingly inhospitable to the maverick inventor.
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THE FIRST TIME I saw Mark Underwood only his legs were visible. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
THE FIRST TIME I saw Mark Underwood only his legs were visible. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
I first learned of the book The Dream Reaper, by Craig Canine, from FarmDayta, which carried a series of discussion groups written by Barry Weber of Galesburg, Illinois. He advised all farmers to read the book, telling us it was about the development of the Bi-Rotor combine. I have been asking for this book since first hearing of it sometime in 1995, and found it in paperback at a bookstore just last week. Originally published by Alfred A.Knopf in 1995, the 1997 paperback edition is from The University of Chicago Press.
I found this book to be much more than a story of the bi-rotor combine. For purpose of explanation of the importance of this new combine concept, Canine has added the history of the reaper. I learned Cyrus McCormick was not the inventor of the reaper, as I had been taught in the elementary grades. Since combines harvest both corn and small grains, the author describes the crops, and wove into the story the history of the crops to be harvested, including an excellent description of the development of hybrid corn.
Mr. Canine exposes the development of the tractors that prepare the soil for seeding those crops, including the competition between manufacturers who sold those machines. The sub-plot of history alone justifies reading this book, as anyone who operates the machinery of agriculture will benefit from an understanding of all the processes involved in the development and marketing of the tools involved in production.
As the reader turns the pages of the book, the struggles, breakthroughs, and disappointments of the developers are revealed in a genuine story of real-life imagery. I often felt myself a part of the project, as I recognized several references to publicity that had appeared in farm magazines during the period of development. For a time, the bi-rotor was a Cat combine, but at the last moment they bowed out of the project. I feel this may be as big a blunder for Cat as its earlier decision at the fir st of the century to sell its combine business to John Deere.
Many references in @g Online discussion groups have been made by contributors who have found this book, and in each case, the person who had read this book advised everyone investigate what this book might tell each individual.
We learn at the end of the book which major agricultural manufacturer finally ends up with the development rights to this new concept combine, and I eagerly await its production in the future. Rumor has it the combine has gone through some radical changes during development under the new patent owners, and it might be in production sometime in the next few years.
If you farm, grew up on a farm, work in an agriculture-related business, or just enjoy farm equipment, this is a must-read book!
Format:Paperback
My wife and I agree that there is a certain type of non-fiction work that qualifies as a classic "Rick book." Such a book focuses on a single, quite narrow, topic well off the beaten path. Craig Canine's Dream Reaper: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Investor in the High-Tech, High-Stakes World of Modern Agriculture fits the bill admirably, and is a great book besides. Canine tells two stories. The principal account - and ostensible subject of the book - is of two Kansans, a farmer-tinkerer and his cousin salesman, as they design, refine, and attempt to find investors for a radically new farm machine, a "bi-rotor combine." This highlights the difficulties in bringing to market, in the modern world of restricted markets and a limited number of manufacturers (John Deere, IH, a few others), a greatly improved but radically different machine. The second account, which places the story of the invention in context, is Canine's excellent overview of mechanized agriculture over the last 150 years. Canine's writing is consistently excellent, and his accounts never less than compelling. As the inventors struggle to meet production deadlines while tempers fray and financing becomes tight, the tension is every bit as palpable as any novel. You really want these guys to succeed against very high odds.
Format:Paperback
Good reading. The book has two themes. One is the story about the inventor and his struggles to develop and market his new combine (harvester). The other theme is the historic overview of mechanized agriculture and its impact on human life. I read the book twice for a better understanding of the history.
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