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Orders under $4 are postpaid. See our shipping & handling rates on the order form. Vermont residents please add 6% sales tax to all orders. International orders please use a check drawn on a US-based Bank. Have a question about orders? Contact us. |
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 DVDs at the N-Store
We at the N-News try to find you the most entertaining DVDs that bring to life the vivid history of Ford's tractors - as well as the not so distant past when these trusty steeds worked the land. Our DVDs not only show tractors and farming, though; we've put together a library of films that bring that past alive, from logging to homebuilding. If Fords were involved, we try to have it here for you. Check back regularly for new DVDs. Order using our special order form.
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Northern Logging: Machines in the Woods - New! |
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 Three vintage films on one DVD offer a captivating look into the early days of mechanized logging.
Interestingly, the DVD is set up in reverse chronological order, starting with “Western Logging – Then and Now.” Presented by the Caterpillar Company, this 19 minute, mostly black and white film produced in 1950, is a retrospective of how logging used to be done. Starting with a short talk about “hayburners” the film moves quickly into a narrated series of photos depicting steam engines pulling loads never possible with horses or oxen. Then, the subject quickly moves to gas engine track machines with a few clips of a Best tractor moving up an amazingly steep grade and a rotating shovel clearing roadways. There is even a short section showing track being laid to get a train into a landing!
Several different methods are shown for getting logs to the river, including dry tracks, greased tracks and even flumes.
Eventually, we get to see the winch type pulling arch, direct pre-decessors to the skidder. The film ends with a color section of Caterpillar dozers, scrapers and road graders at work in 1950.
“Tree in a Test Tube” (1942) starts with Laurel and Hardy being asked what they are carrying that is made of wood. Of course, neither thinks they have any wood products – until the narrator gets them to go through all of the items they have with them. The film then moves on to talk about how wood could help win the war, by utilizing everything from all wood training planes to temporary floating bridges, charcoal gas masks and laminated wood beam arches for buildings.
In the end, the film links wood and wood products to the war effort and, ultimately, to our economy.
“Northern Logging” (1932) is a silent, black and white film focusing on Caterpillar machines toiling in the woods. From building roads with primitive scrapers to running portable saw mills for the building of logging camps – there is no doubt these crawlers created a whole new idea of what logging was to become in the 1930s and beyond.
There is some amazing footage of a Caterpillar 30 with a front mounted snowplow keeping the road open to a logging camp while pulling supplies at the same time. And more footage of several different model Caterpillars pulling sleds through some very cold looking winter scenes in Canada.
In all, these three films total almost 50 minutes and are an amazing look back at the logging industry thirty to eighty years ago. Well worth $14.95 to add to your library.
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Harold Brock DVD Interview |
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 In June of 2009 I traveled to Iowa to interview Harold Brock, chief designer of the 9N tractor project. Producing a video interview takes a lot of time and money. Collecting up the gear, traveling and postproduction work were all things I felt the N-News couldn’t afford either the money or the time. But, author Bob Pripps got me thinking about this as a great opportunity.
It was a little overwhelming to sit down and talk with a man who worked intimately with Henry Ford, Edsel Ford, Henry Ford II, had met Thomas Edison, Harry Ferguson and many other legends of modern invention and industry. The idea of having a tunnel back in time to talk to someone who was there, was an intriguing project to tackle.
I have known Harold for many years, but this was my first time meeting him face to face. Given his 93 years, I was a little concerned about what his energy level would be and how he would do in a room full of lights and video equipment. But Harold didn’t even blink. He was well prepared to sit and talk about his days at the Ford Apprentice School and how that led to meeting and working with Henry Ford and being brought into the small engineering department at the time.
We talked about how Ford and Ferguson met and interacted with each other, and perhaps, more importantly, how the Ford design team dealt with Ferguson. We also spent time talking about the history of Ford Motor Company and some of the key players like “Cast Iron” Charlie Sorensen, Eugene Farkas and other engineers.
This is your chance to hear about the historic development of the N series tractors from a man who was there at the center of it all. This video is nearly two hours long, with supporting still photos from the N-News archives and reader send-ins to help punctuate Harold’s points. (And, for bonus material, a slide show of additional photos that we collected, but didn’t use in the video itself.)
The DVD will be ready to ship mid May. Place your order now. $26.95 plus shipping and handling. Note, for every DVD sold, the N-News will make a donation (after production costs are met) to an educational fund Harold Brock set up in Iowa. |
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New Hampshire Remembered [DVD] |
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 Produced by New Hampshire Public Television as a several part series, this DVD has a homespun feel that is not to be missed. The premise is simple enough: list all of the things about life in New Hampshire that are gone. Next, collect up as much home movie footage and interviews with people that were there, and package it up into a three-hour film. Hosted by Fritz Wetherbee, a 12th generation New Hampshire native, his northern New England accent alone is a sure catalyst to days gone by.
There is wonderful home footage, historic images and great stories from people who were there as owners of some of these places, or direct participants. Some of the places that make this a wonderful ride down memory lane include: Benson's Wild Animal Farm, Pine Island Park, The Keene Drive-In, Bedford Grove and the Carousel Ballroom, Reed's White Elephant Shop, The Nashua Dodgers, The State Theater, The Notre Dame Bridge, The snow trains from Boston to Warner, The NH Highway Hotel, the Mount Washington Hotel. Watch Rod Laver play in the first Volvo Tennis Tournament; ride an open trolley all the way to Hampton Beach; dance until one in the morning at Irwin's Winnipesaukee Gardens, Camp Cody, the Concord Railroad Depot, the Inferno Ski Race in Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mount Washington and more.
If you grew up in New Hampshire, or spent time there, it is hard to believe that some of the places that are revisited aren’t stored somewhere in your memories. DVD only, 180 minutes, $24.95 plus s&h. |
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 Originally produced by Vermont Public Television, the hour long “In Days Gone By: Vermont Country Ways” reveals the nuances of rural life in the 1930s and 40s. Through the stories of plowing with horses, pitching hay and spreading manure by hand, all make us appreciate how the Fordson, and then the N, changed agriculture. But this film gives a much broader view of rural life seventy or more years ago. One room school houses, the wood cook stove, washday, waking up in a freezing room, early snow control, tales of rural doctoring are just a few examples of life before machinery and electricity. $19.95
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Timber is a Crop: Pulpwood Harvesting [DVD] |
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 Produced by the Brown Company of Berlin, New Hampshire, this DVD (three films originally created to introduce the layperson to the ways of “modern” wood harvesting) runs 66 minutes. “Timber is a Crop: Pulpwood Harvesting in the 1940s and 1950s” includes “Pulpwood for Today and Tomorrow,” which explains pulpwood production and woodlot management; “Timber as a Crop” which gives a nice view of early machinery, log camp life, pulp wood river drives; and “The Forest and the Woods-man” (originally 1945, revised in 1964), which explains how machinery has changed the timber industry – including an interesting Bombardier track skidder, crawler tractors, and a short but interesting history of the peavey. $16.95
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Earliest Massachusetts Films [DVD] |
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 Before 1912, it was impossible to copyright a film – the technology was too new and the laws were not up to date. But it was possible to copyright photographs. Because the early film industry was extremely competitive, Edison and other film producers would make a positive “print” of the film on photographic paper, thereby making it possible to copyright it! In the basement of the Library of Congress were reels and reels of what looked like film, but were photographic prints of the films. These prints were refilmed to create one of the first motion picture looks at life over 100 years ago! “Earliest Massachusetts Films 1897-1907” is a collection of 21 short films from Massachusetts that ranges from bustling Boston street scenes to parades, a staged train wreck, football games, and steam driven fire engines. (The film should be viewed with the narration turned on.) $19.95.
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 Only 28 minutes long, this film about logging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries packs an overview of the industry in its heyday, from introduction to logging camps & hand saws to river log drives that end at the mill. It’s a tremendous amount of information! Noted Maine humorist Tim Sample narrates “From Stump To Ship: A 1930 Logging Film,” which would have been shown silently and narrated by Alfred Ames (who shot much of the original film himself). Realizing that logging as he knew it was coming to an end, Ames in this film looks in detail at milling operations that turn trees into cut boards and beams with a 9” wide by 48’ long band saw blade. $19.95
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