Horse, Truck and Tractor: The Coming of Cheaper Power for City and Farm, by Casson, Herbert N., L.W. Ellis, and Rollin W. Hutchinson, Jr.
Inventory #: 01582
Price: $35.00

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Horse, Truck and Tractor: The Coming of Cheaper Power for City and Farm, by Casson, Herbert N., L.W. Ellis, and Rollin W. Hutchinson, Jr.. F.G. Browne: Chicago, 1913. Edition: First edition (same date). Hardcover, 8vo, 6 by 9 inches, 200 pages. Olive green cloth with black lettering on cover and spine. Dark publisher's stain on top page edges. Illustrated with over 40 pages of black and white photographs.

Condition: Good Plus, no jacket. This is from the B.F. Goodrich Co. Technical Library and contains standard library markings, spine lable, due date slip, and other marks of ownership. Corners and spine ends are bumped and worn; cover is lightly scuffed and soiled and page edges are darkened. The photograph makes the book look like it is sun-faded around the edges, but it is not. There is actually a box blindstamped about 1/4 inch in from the outer edges of the front cover, and there is something about the way the light hits that part of the photo that makes it look faded when it is not.

Contents: A fascinating look at the world just as trucks and tractors were beginning to replace horses for farm work and delivery, complete with many pictures of early trucks and tractors.

Of particular interest to draft horse enthusiasts (and possibly to economic history buffs) are the charts which compare the cost of draft horses against the cost of mechanized transport. These charts lay out the cost of horses, wagons, harness, feed, shoeing, stabling, etc. and convert it to a cost per mile. For the Commonwealth Edison Company ("...a large company owning and operating one of the largest fleets of horse-drawn wagons in Chicago"), for instance, it cost 40 cents per mile to operate one double wagon one day, with one team without a helper. It covered 15 miles in a day. For a suburban delivery service with eight two-horse teams in active service, the teams averaged twenty miles per day each and each team rested every fourth day.

Approximately the first half of the book presents the case for why trucks and tractors are more cost efficient than horses. In the second half, tackles such issues as the most desirable size of tractor, power-plowing in small fields, the tractor in the corn belt, on the fruit farm, on the wheat farm, and for dry farming.

All and all, this is a wonderful window into the thinking processes and economic considerations of the ever practical America farmer and businessman when faced with adopting new technology.

Some of the old trucks pictured in the book: