The practical, intriguing American devices contained in this handbook come from an era long before milking machines, pesticide sprayers, and industrial hay balers. Designed to speed and simply everything from making your own butter to protecting drain outlets to organizing and storing tools, the easy-to-make mechanisms you’ll find here can be just as useful for today’s farmer as they were for frontier homesteaders.

Discover how to transform odds and ends—scraps of lumber from old building projects, leftover sections of barbed wire, the box spring sitting in the attic—into handy household implements. With the illustrated instructions here, you can make a movable nest for hens, a ribless boat, a contraption to extricate a mired animal, a farm cart with movable racks for larger roads, a wire fence tightener, a fruit picker, a grindstone set and frame, and much more. This book is perfect for the rancher, farmer, craftsman—anyone with a love of the rural life.