Product Description: "I'm embarrassed to say I thought I knew anything substantial about Wisconsin agriculture or its history before I read this book. 'Wisconsin Agriculture' should be required reading in history classes from high school to the collegiate level...read more

Product Description: Step into the garden with writer and rural historian Jerry Apps. In this treasure trove of tips, recollections, and recipes, Jerry combines his hard-earned advice for garden success with a discussion of how tending a garden leads to a deeper understanding of nature and the land...read more

Product Description: In 1910, when Olaf F. Larson was born to tenant livestock and tobacco farmers in Rock County, Wisconsin, the original barn still stood on the property. It was filled with artifacts of an earlier time—an ox yoke, a grain cradle, a scythe used to cut hay by hand...read more

Product Description: Driving a tractor was a rite of passage for every farmboy and girl. Anyone who grew up on a farm has nostalgic—or not so happy!—stories about his or her first tractor: the Farmall that replaced the draft horses, the John Deere “Poppin’ Johnny” that ran forever, and the cursed tractor that would never start...read more

Product Description: Fans of Jerry Apps will delight in his latest novel, Blue Shadows Farm, which follows the intriguing family story of three generations on a Wisconsin farm.    Silas Starkweather, a Civil War veteran, is drawn to Wisconsin and homesteads 160 acres in Ames County, where he is known as the mysterious farmer forever digging holes...read more

Product Description: The H H Harlow Pickle Company has appeared in the small town of Link Lake, using heavy-handed tactics to force family farmers to either farm the Harlow way or lose their biggest customer - and, possibly, their land.

Product Description: The Midwest in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s was a special place-a place where parents and children worked side by side to eke out a living from the land, and neighbors stuck by each other through good times and bad. In this affectionate, insightful collection of stories, Jerry Apps takes us to that world...read more

Life during the early to mid-twentieth century is often viewed as a time of backbreaking work for meager returns. Often, the strength and resiliency of family and neighbors is overlooked. Through stories based on childhood memories, master storyteller Jerry Apps gives us insights into the lighter side of country life. About the Author: A professor emeritus of agriculture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, author Jerry Apps has written more than 35 books, many of them on rural history and country life. Recent titles include "Every Farm Tells a Story" and "When Chores Were Done." His writing has earned awards from the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Library Association, and Barnes and Noble Booksellers, among others.

Product Description: Popular author Jerry Apps reads eleven of his favorite stories from his best-selling rural history books. Relive with Jerry a polka dance at the country school. Meet the children of the Chain O'Lake 4-H Club. Work on a threshing crew...read more

When the calf that his father promised him turns out to be a bull instead of a heifer, Jerry is disappointed, until a disaster on the farm teaches him an important lesson.