Tractor heritage, news and features

The Bigger Book Of John Deere

Helpfully arranged in nine chapters that take the reader from 1892 when John Froelich built his first stationary-engined powered farm vehicle in Waterloo, Iowa, through to the New Millennium; this book explains all of the models, including the experimental ones, made by John Deere.

The book inevitably tells the story of John Deere from the American perspective, but there is mention of Lanz, Lanz-Iberica, Chamberlain and the Gnosjo Mekanski Werkstad Company (GMW) of Almhult, Sweden, GMW 35 and 25, which were copies of the AW and BW.

The author Don Macmillan’s association with the Green & Yellow brand started in 1940 when an AR was delivered to the farm on which he was working. He started contract ploughing in August 1942 with an Oliver 90 but in 1943 managed to get a new D through the War Ag. He went on to become the first Deere dealer in the UK in 1958, having previously imported the only two 55 combines to ever come to England.

If you are a Deere enthusiast, this book is a must; and if don’t know much yet about this fascinating brand, then this book will give you an excellent grounding.

The Bigger Book of John Deere – The Complete Model-by-Model Encyclopaedia,  by Don Macmillan, hardback, 288 pages,  with black & white and colour contemporary and modern images and advertisements, £25, ISBN 978-0-7603-3653-3, published by Voyageur Press, available in the UK from Grantham Book Services,  www.granthambookservices.co.uk, tel: 01206 255777.