Online Catalogue last updated 17th of September 2023
The rototiller as we know it started with the 1910 Patent by Konrad von Meyenburg of Switzerland. In his patent von Meyenburg detailed his power-driven flexibly mounted tines. The principle of his design as explained in his patent application is: "The power of earth cutting by edge tools depending mainly upon the sharpness, section and surface of the tools and their free cutting, I make them of small section and surface, preferably self-sharpening, elastic and independent; so that each edge, also rotated mainly in a circle, may give way laterally and backwardly, like the claws of a scraping animal, and follow the way of least resistance upon a trembling or shivery curve". In the early 1930's with America and the rest of the world sinking into The Great Depression only three companies were involved in the walk behind rotary tillage industry. One started as a distributor of European machines, one modified European models and renamed them, and the last as a manufacturer.
This books goes onto catalogue a large range of rotary hoes, including many from outside the USA. Europeans makes are covered, and there is even a good section on the Howard Rotary Hoes.
Donald A. Jones is a helicopter and aircraft mechanic by trade and a collector of rototillers by accident. The son of a U.S. Marine and a Mother who trusted him, he grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and eventually ended up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Married, and with a daughter in grad school, and a son in college. Gardening was always a hobby and he developed his mechanical skills repairing his own lawnmowers as a young teenager.
Code No. 015379, 297 pages, ISBN 9780741418067, $30.00