Online Catalogue last updated 17th of September 2023
Subtitled "Men and Machines in Rural Australia" by Frances Wheelhouse.
Agriculture has played a leading role in the development of Australia as a nation. So, too, the ingenuity of Australian farmers and engineers has played an important part in the development of agriculture throughout the world.
Ever since the first settlers found it necessary to improve upon the meagre supplies of government-donated farming implements, Australians have been at the forefront of advances in farming techniques. Often it was the need to overcome some particular adversity of local conditions that prompted men like H.V. McKay, Headlie Taylor, and Cliff Howard to develop their ideas and turn them into working machines.
In Digging Stick to Rotary Hoe, Frances Wheelhouse has presented the results of many years painstaking research. She tells how the Stump Jump Plough, the Stripper, and the Header Harvester came to be invented. The many Australian inventions for improved ploughing, seeding, shearing, and wool-pressing are described, together with the much-needed sources of power - steam engines, tractors, and the advent of four-wheel drive.
The author has brought together many of the determined men whose machines and pioneering spirit have contributed more than is usually acknowledged to the agriculture of Australia and the rest of the world.
Code No. 001698