Books

The success of the two-cylinder tractors which carried the Waterloo Boy and John Deere names, for more than 40 years from 1918, helped to establish Deere and Co as the world’s leading farm equipment manufacturer. They also played an important role in tractor development, introducing new ideas and raising performance standards to benefit the farming industry worldwide.

‘Johnny Popper’ tractors have become part of the history of power farming. Many of them have survived and are either still at work or preserved by enthusiasts.

This book tells the story of the two-cylinder tractors. It includes more than 130 colour photographs, most of them taken especially for the book and showing superbly restored tractors owned by enthusiasts in the United States, Britain and Canada. Some of the photographs are detail shots showing special features of the tractors. These provide a fascinating record of the design changes which took place over more than four decades of development.

There are also some black and white photographs, supplied by the Two-Cylinder Club, which were taken more than 100 years ago when the original Froelich tractor, the forerunner of all Waterloo Boy and John Deere tractors – was working on South Dakota.