Customer Reviews

Dream Reaper: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Inventor in the High-Tech, High-Stakes World of Modern Agriculture (Sloan Technology Series)

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_Dream_Reaper_ is a delightful tale of two cousins--a mechanic and a salesman in their endeavors to develop a more compact design for the harvesting combine and market the concept through a sponsor. The struggle of Mark Underwood in creating the Bi-Rotor machinery to reduce grain spillage and parts clutter provides a glimpse into the hardships of inventors. The insightful interpersonal skills of Ralph Lagergren reveal a confidence in not settling for corporate comfort, but in taking a big risk for a big payoff.

In intervening chapters, Canine diverts from the story to introduce the history of harvesting and its mechanization . The reader learns of many fascinating conversation topics, such as the etymology of "tribulation", a patent infringement lawsuit on a reaper that launched Abraham Lincoln's political career, the corn growing experiments of Henry Wallace, or the genetic differences between grains and weeds enabling an aromatic compound to kill the latter without affecting the former. Whether one is interested in agriculture, machinery, history, Canine's prose makes the book a pure joy to read.............

My neighbor next door, is Ralph; half of the inventor team in this

book. His name, as well as his cousin, Mark, are familiar names to the

agricultural community throughout the USA. I wanted to know more about

this friendly, family man who I call a "neighbor."

Today's inventor and entrepreneur faces a difficult series of hurdles on the road from conception to production. In more and more areas, a new obstacle is being added. Due to various economic forces, the number of companies that may purchase or license your patent is decreasing. In some fields two or three giant corporations dominate the market. If they turn you down, and the costs to develop your invention are high, are you locked out of the market?

This book relates the story of how for thirteen years two men, inventor Mark Underwood and his cousin Ralph Langren, a sales and marketing specialist, fought the battle to develop and market their Bi Rotor combine.

If you think all the problems of harvesting grain were solved by Cyrus McCormick's mechanical reaper, this book's review of the history of harvesting will give you a fascinating new picture that your school books did not provide. In one lifetime (McCormick's) farming went from medieval tools to mechanical reapers, and from nine of ten Americans living on a farm to the farmer becoming a minority of the population. Incidentally, McCormick did not invent the basic reaper. But as the book points out, he was "a great inventor, a master salesman, a prophet of mass production, and a robber baron, all rolled into one."

What Kansas dirt farmer Mark Underwood did was to reinvent the combine (a combine is called that because it combines reaping, threshing, and winnowing). He was inspired, as a high school senior when working a summer job, by a drum type mixer used to mix cement, sand, and gravel. For nine years he sketched and turned the idea over in his head. In 1989 he was awarded a $20,000 grant by the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation and was able to build a two-thirds size model.

When testing the first model they quickly discovered a way to clean the grain in the same operation. Other developments, such as the self leveling sieve soon came about. The book details the privations endured for years as they built ever improved prototypes. Finding funding for these prototypes was an unending battle. They approached the big and the small, Ross Perot, John Deere, International Harvester, and Caterpillar. They finally scored by offering limited partnerships to small investors and with a development deal with Caterpillar.

The book is not only loaded with penetrating looks into the progress in agriculture but with looks at the vital relationship between the inventor and the entrepreneur. It points out that when a partnership is formed between the typically passive, compulsive perfectionist inventor and an aggressive, systematic entrepreneur, there is no limit to what can be achieved.

The story of how and why grain elevators came to dominate the landscape is a must read. Also, how grain elevators led to a grain grading system and in turn how this led to futures trading is not only interesting history, but will give you an understanding of some of the headlines in today's financial pages. There is nothing dull in the story of the progression from horses to steam to internal combustion engines and from massive soil compressing wheels to tractor treads that prevent soil compression. (Soil fertility is destroyed by soil compression.)

Equally interesting is the tale of why Ford's highly successful Fordson tractor lost out to the Farmall tractor. Ford froze its design. International Harvester added a practical power takeoff (PTO) mechanism and "power farming" came of age in l924.

The chapters on corn hybrids and weed-killing herbicides are not only informative, but they are a reminder of how changes affecting agriculture worldwide were brought about by individuals obsessed by an idea.

Is the old-fashioned inventor obsolete in the modern high-tech world? Read the book and decide for yourself. An easy read and the many delightful insights into modern agriculture are a reminder that food production is still very much a concern in this age of electronics.

I picked this up on an anonymous recommendation and am now wholeheartedly praising it to anyone who will listen! The author, Craig Canine, has fashioned a page-turning, suspense-filled, dramatic telling of an entrepreneur's struggle, laced with a surprisingly fascinating history of the development of modern agriculture. Not just for business-school types or farmers, it is a tale well-told and absolutely worthy of the high rankings you are seeing here.

We take for granted that farmers will get us fed, though less than a century ago, a huge majority of us had to help out at harvest time to make sure. This book is about how advances to the technology of farming were made and are still being made. It is about the harvesting machines, or "combines", and about how these machines were invented. The larger story is about how the odds are stacked against those who dare to advance technology in a meaningful way. We meet modern day renegade heros, who continue to work very hard to overcome the great odds stacked against technology developers.

I work as a product developer in "fastening technology" for a major company. Craig Canine's book about the inventors of harvesters teaches more about the process of technology development than any book I've read.

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!

I picked this up on an anonymous recommendation and am now wholeheartedly praising it to anyone who will listen! The author, Craig Canine, has fashioned a page-turning, suspense-filled, dramatic telling of an entreprenuer's struggle, laced with a suprisingly fascinating history of the development of modern agricutlure. Not just for business-school types or farmers, it is a tale well-told and absolutely worthy of the high rankings you are seeing here.

This is one of those rare books that makes you realize that there is a history and great story behind every invention. Mr Canine does an incredible job at showing this to us, as well as the implications that an invention has in the long run. Truly an incredible book. I hope to see more of this authors work!

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.

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.