Dream Reaper: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Inventor in the High-Tech, High-Stakes World of Mo dern Agriculture

by Craig Canine

Mark Underwood and his cousin Ralph Lagergren have pooled their talents and their funds to bring to market Mark's invention, an innovative harvester they hope will take the farm industry by storm. The author takes readers through the saga of the cousins' struggles: raising capital, obtaining patents, and presenting the harvester to a long line of corporate suitors. Illustrations.

Genres: History, Technology

300 pages, Hardcover

First published August 29, 1995

Reviews

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Craig Canine portrays the inventive genius of Mark Underwood, a Kansas farmer and mechanical genius, who has developed a evolutionary new combine, the Bi-Rotor, that leaves far less of the crop, is simpler in design, carries more, and covers ground much faster than traditional combines. Canine uses the Underwood story as emblematic of the extraordinary achievements of American agriculture in confounding Malthusian predictions. The first reaper was not Cyrus McCormack’s invention. Pliny the Elder wrote of “large frames fitted with teeth at the edge and carried on two wheels that are driven through the grain by a pack animal pushing from behind; the ears thus torn off fall into the frame.”

William Pitt, in 1785, borrowed Pliny’s description to create a similar machine, but the first patent for a reaper was issued in 1799 to Joseph Boyce. A modern combine integrates three functions: the header reaps the crop which is then flailed and the seed separated from the chaff. Ironically, the first machines to perform these tasks were hailed as products of the devil, for they did not use the wind to blow away chaff. Churchgoers viewed them with alarm. “A machine that threshed with the mere turn of a crank seemed so unnatural.” A new kind of fanning mill was blasted as “impiously thwarting the will of Divine Providence, by raising wind . . . by human art, instead of soliciting it by prayer.” The new machines certainly did disrupt the social order by reducing the need for a large, cheap labor supply — one reason they were so successful in the United States, which had cheap land but little labor. Underwood struggled to get financing for his revolutionary machine, then to convince the major manufacturers of its value. The corporations can provide the structure for manufacturing and marketing, but they are unable to innovate, says Underwood. That’s the role of the lone inventor. Ironically, his view is echoed by the head of engineering at John Deere. “We build on concepts that have proven their value in the marketplace.” The new engineering tools, CAD, computers, etc. “help us take the risk out of the process. They improve on existing ideas. What they do not do, though, is create brand-new ideas. They don’t create the spark.”

Interestingly, an article in the Washington Post National Weekly Edition (June 9, 1997) about the Boeing-McDonnell Douglass merger reinforced the validity of this view. “While bigger companies may be able to produce goods and services at a lower cost, experience shows them to be less skillful in coming up with breakthrough innovations and new technologies that in the long run are the real source of economic growth, higher incomes and rising standards of living.” The book ends on an indeterminate note. While John Deere and Case-IH show no interest, Caterpillar has funded the building of the second prototype, but they own Claas, a large European agricultural machinery company, and it is unclear whether the radical combine will ever see production. This is a fascinating story.

[Walter A · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book engaged me from start to finish. In fact, I hated to see it end. I was encouraged to read it by an advisor because of my current involvement in starting an ag technology business. The central story of the bi-rotor combine is used the thread around which other historic ag technology develop stories are woven.

The writer tells these stories so well that I was usually dying to skip ahead and find out which ag success (or failure) store he was building up to. The chapter on herbicides had me wondering which popular herbicide all the prior work eventually led to. I knew it wasn't Roundup because the story was about Dow Chemical. I was patient and let the story unfold.

If you have an connection with agriculture, which I do, then you'l find this fascinating. If you don't, you will likely be amazed at the stories of developments and involvement by people like Henry Ford or the increases in production brought about by families of inventors such as the Wallaces'.

[Metin Ozsavran · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a rare gem for learning about agtech or farn machinary industry. Although ending is sad and dishearthening, its still a privilege having read this.

[Pilar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who wouldn't like the story of an inventor who's held down by the Man? (McCormick, sometimes John Deere.)