Farm Conveniences and How to Make Them: Classic American Labor-Saving Devices

Farm Conveniences and How to Make Them is a fascinating volume abounding in valuable hints and suggestions for the construction of homemade farming and homesteading devices. First published in 1884, it contains the best ideas gathered from farmers, and teaches valuable lessons in rural economy. Filled with more than two hundred engravings, Farm Conveniences and How to Make Them includes information on how to build a milking shed, a dam, a sled for removing corn shocks, a variety of animal traps, gatepost braces, a log boat, cards, and a great number of other instruments.

Also an everyday farming handbook, it provides instructions on how to use wastelands, prevent the washing of hillsides, harvest manure, dress meats, build shelters, and much more. As the preface most accurately sums up, “Skill in the construction and use of simple labor-saving devices is of vast importance to the farmer, and any aid to the development of this manual dexterity is always welcome.” Learn how the creativity and precision that went into developing these handy devices equipped farmers of the past with the knowledge and tools to work efficiently.

A highly inventive, practical handbook for the farm, from a golden era of hard-nosed ingenuity.

Byron D. Halsted (1852-1918) was a noted American biologist and educator. He was born in Venice, New York, and studied at Michigan State University and at Harvard University (DSc, 1879). He began teaching botany at Iowa State University in 1885, moving on to Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1889.