E M YOUNG:PRAIRIE PIONER Format: Paperback

E. M. Young, born in 1893, grew up on a farm in central North Dakota which had only mediocre horses. However, in 1911 his father wisely decided that to keep his sons interested in farming, he had to buy a tractor. Even though it did not work perfectly, the sons preferred the tractor and rarely used horses after that. He was the eldest son, was mechanically minded and was totally convinced that tractors were the wave of the future. By 1922 he called his business The New Era Grain and Stock Farm.

After some very successful years he caught the euphoria of the agricultural boom of World War I and purchased land at the peak of prices. The sudden drop in commodity prices together with drought wiped out all he had accumulated. Fortunately, he was an eternal optimist, but he also understood economy of scale and operated as extensively as his finances allowed. When farm programs were written in the 1930s he grasped that the more acres he farmed the more he would receive in payments. In 1938 the dry spell ended, and by 1941 wartime activity caused prices to rise. E.M. Young's fortunes recovered as quickly as they had dropped in the 1920s. No matter how difficult times were, he continued to charge ahead. This is the story of a farm boy who broke sod on three frontiers and never gave up.

Hiram M. Drache grew up in a small farming village and spent much of his early life working at every task in the era of horsepower farming. After experiencing combat as a B-17 lead navigator in WW-II, he received his B.A. from Gustavus Adolphus College, his M.A. from the University of Minnesota, and Ph.D. from the University of North Dakota. He has worked in various businesses and purchased his first farm in 1950. From 1952 to 1991 he was a professor of history at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota. He is currently historian-in-residence at Concordia where he writes full time.