By Craig Canine, 1995, 300 pages, $25.00, ISBN 0-679-41272-7. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Today's inventor and entrepreneur faces a difficult series of hurdles on the road from conception to production. In more and more areas, a new obstacle is being added. Due to various economic forces, the number of companies that may purchase or license your patent is decreasing. In some fields two or three giant corporations dominate the market. If they turn you down, and the costs to develop your invention are high, are you locked out of the market?

This book relates the story of how for thirteen years two men, inventor Mark Underwood and his cousin Ralph Langren, a sales and marketing specialist, fought the battle to develop and market their Bi Rotor combine.

If you think all the problems of harvesting grain were solved by Cyrus McCormick's mechanical reaper, this book's review of the history of harvesting will give you a fascinating new picture that your school books did not provide. In one lifetime (McCormick's) farming went from medieval tools to mechanical reapers, and from nine of ten Americans living on a farm to the farmer becoming a minority of the population.

Incidentally, McCormick did not invent the basic reaper. But as the book points out, he was "a great inventor, a master salesman, a prophet of mass production, and a robber baron, all rolled into one."

What Kansas dirt farmer Mark Underwood did was to reinvent the combine (a combine is called that because it combines reaping, threshing, and winnowing). He was inspired, as a high school senior when working a summer job, by a drum type mixer used to mix cement, sand, and gravel. For nine years he sketched and turned the idea over in his head. In 1989 he was awarded a $20,000 grant by the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation and was able to build a two-thirds size model.

When testing the first model they quickly discovered a way to clean the grain in the same operation. Other developments, such as the self-leveling sieve, soon came about. The book details the privations endured for years as they built ever improved prototypes. Finding funding for these prototypes was an unending battle. They approached the big and the small, Ross Perot, John Deere, International Harvester, and Caterpillar. They finally scored by offering limited partnerships to small investors and with a development deal with Caterpillar.

The book is not only loaded with penetrating looks into the progress in agriculture but with looks at the vital relationship between the inventor and the entrepreneur. It points out that when a partnership is formed between the typically passive, compulsive perfectionist inventor and an aggressive, systematic entrepreneur, there is no limit to what can be achieved.

The story of how and why grain elevators came to dominate the landscape is a must read. Also, how grain elevators led to a grain grading system and in turn how this led to futures trading is not only interesting history, but will give you an understanding of some of the headlines in today's financial pages. There is nothing dull in the story of the progression from horses to steam to internal combustion engines and from massive soil compressing wheels to tractor treads that prevent soil compression. (Soil fertility is destroyed by soil compression.)

Equally interesting is the tale of why Ford's highly successful Fordson tractor lost out to the Farmall tractor. Ford froze its design. International Harvester added a practical power takeoff (PTO) mechanism and "power farming" came of age in 1924.

The chapters on corn hybrids and weed-killing herbicides are not only informative, but they are a reminder of how changes affecting agriculture worldwide were brought about by individuals obsessed by an idea.

Is the old-fashioned inventor obsolete in the modern high-tech world? Read the book and decide for yourself. An easy read and the many delightful insights into modern agriculture are a reminder that food production is still very much a concern in this age of electronics.