Here’s your chance to get your favorite photo published in Farm Collector: We’re gearing up for our 2012 Show Photo issue, when we publish the best photos of this year’s show season, taken by Farm Collector readers. We’ll publish the best of the lot in our February 2012 issue, and all photos will be posted on the Farm Collector website beginning in January 2012.

What better way to promote your club’s show, share a great shot and spread the word about the old iron hobby?

Please send original prints or high resolution digital images. Polaroids, photos printed on copy paper and low resolution digital files do not reproduce well and will not be used. Make a copy of every photo you send, as no photos will be returned.  

• Provide names of people in the photo if you can
• Tell us when and where the photo was taken
• Include the name of the photographerand the show 
• Include any relevant information (for instance, the make and model of equipment in the photo, if known)
• Deadline for submissions is Nov. 1 
• If recognizable children under age 18 are shown in your photo, a signed release form (provided by Farm Collector) for each child must be on file at our offices prior to publication.

Send prints or CDs with your name, phone number and e-mail address to:

Farm Collector Show Photos, 1503 SW 42^nd St., Topeka, KS 66609

e-mail digital files to editor@farmcollector.com 

For more information, contact Beth Beavers at (785) 274-4379

Those who treasure the past know the challenge: It’s one thing to find relics from another era; altogether another to learn their story. But old iron remains almost defiantly mute, and those with firsthand knowledge to impart are fast disappearing. Solid resources are hard to come by, which is why we are particularly pleased to present a special edition containing a retrospective of Sam Moore’s columns for Farm Collector.

With us almost from the beginning of the magazine in 1998, Sam has written on a stunningly diverse array of topics. Impeccably researched and richly detailed, his columns breathe life into traditional farm practices long forgotten, fill in gaps on long defunct manufacturers and clear the fog surrounding actual use of long forgotten machinery, implements and devices. (He’s also a prolific blogger: Check out Sam’s blogs at www.FarmCollector.com.) 

The product of a four-generation family farm in Beaver County, Pa., Sam has been an apt student of farm life. I like to picture him as a boy, doing chores on the farm, knowing when to keep out of the way and when to get in the middle of things, asking questions and filing away the answers for future reference.

Sam left the farm after high school and found a life’s career elsewhere, but his passion for farm life never faded. In addition to a modest collection of tractors and implements, he’s built an enormous reference library of books and publications, catalogs and sales literature, vintage magazines and manuals. Those form a sturdy foundation for the columns he writes monthly for Farm Collector – a selection of which is showcased in Harvesting Heritage: 150 Years on the American Farm. 

In these pages you’ll find everything from directions for setting up perfect check-rows to wry recollections of truck-swallowing mud roads, the stories behind early manufacturers to making hay. The lore he shares is priceless. “Very few Americans today have even a remote connection to our farming heritage,” Sam notes, “and the people who still do are vanishing.” At Farm Collector, we consider Sam one of the leading resources in the hobby. We are honored to work with him, and thrilled to be able to share some of his best work with you in Harvesting Heritage. For ordering details, click here: Make space on your bookshelf for this one. FC