L'aube du tracteur en France

The dawn of field tractor in France : a comprehensive catalog of the world's agricultural machines in 1917)
Before 1914, France was still a rural country : men and women were working hardly in the fields, only helped by animal power. Then war broke out, and most of the men were sent to the trenches, or to the factories to produce war equipment, leaving old men, children and women in the countryside. In 1917, during the fourth year of World War One in Europe, a French senator, Dr Chauveau, raised out the idea that the future of the country, when peace is back, would rely upon mechanical agriculture.
This was the basis for a completely outstanding research : what mechanical equipment would be available and suitable for this farm revolution ? Dr Chauveau wrote to all and every field tractor manufacturer in the world and compiled the documentation he got. This work turned out into a complete catalog on field tractors, most of them designed and produced in the United States with names as famous as Case, International Harvester, Caterpillar, etc. plus a host of small firms from all over the USA. This catalog featured also dozens of British designed tractors, including the last steam engines (Fowler, Aveling & Porter, etc.) and also some continental European models of all sizes.
All in all, a total of 177 different types of field tractors of the 1914-17 vintage were depicted, and are now available again in this unique reprint, each of them comprising a photograph and a technical data.
Although written in French as per the original edition, this very handy catalog will be very helpful to the international audience who will find records of a huge number of tractors now completely forgotten in their own country of origin, the United States and Great-Britain.