Prairie Wanderings: Wheat harvest in the 1940s years ago
By PAUL G. JANTZEN
Contributing writer
For farm kids, threshing time was as exciting as the county fair or a circus, according to Bob Artley in "Once Upon a Farm."
When the wheat turned to golden yellow, a horse-drawn binder cut and tied wheat plants into bundles. The bundles were then arranged in shocks to await threshing day.
One hot summer day, I helped my older brother shock wheat at our grandfather's farm in the Cub Creek valley. We leaned two erect bundles against each other and arranged about a dozen more around them, all heads-up.
Days later, pitchers on the ground with their three-tined forks would pick up the bundles from each shock and place them on a horse-drawn bundle rack by which they were taken to the threshing machine. The thresher was positioned so that the straw blowing out of the blower pipe blew with the wind toward the location the farmer chose for the straw stack. Most of the straw would be used as bedding for livestock. The grain which the thresher separated from the straw and chaff was directed into a nearby wagon and taken to a granary for storage.
The thresher was powered by either a conventional tractor, or an "oil-pull," or a steam engine. Operating a steam engine required water for the boiler, coal for the fire box, and an early morning for the engineer.
Before threshing could begin, the burning coal had to generate the heat that converted liquid water into the steam which provided the pressure to move the piston. This giant tractor with its wide steel rear wheels was a sight to behold. Its laborious chug, chug and belches of black smoke added to its grandeur.
Some rural bridges were not strong enough to support its weight, and the steam engine pulling the thresher and the water wagon had to be driven through a dry creek bed to get from one farm to another.
With the larger threshing machine, powered by a steam engine, two racks could deliver bundles at once, one on each side of the feeder trough in which a conveyer belt moved bundles into the thresher.
When I was 13 years old, I rented a horse and buggy and served as the "water monkey" for a harvest crew that used a steam engine to power its thresher. I provided drinking water for the pitchers in the field who loaded the bundle racks. We had no ice, just cool well water in small wooden kegs and earthen jugs covered with wet gunny sacks until ready for use.
I supplied a five-gallon can of cool drinking water and a cup for the men at the thresher: the thresher operator, the steam engine engineer, and the men who operated grain wagons, water and coal wagons (for the steam engine), and the bundle racks. I also brought the pitchers in the field light lunches at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. The more abundant noon meal was served by the ladies in the farmhouse while all the horses rested.
When I was 14 years old, I worked all summer for a farmer who was part of a smaller harvest crew. Each farmer in the neighborhood furnished a bundle rack, a team of horses, and a driver. It was my task to haul wheat bundles from the field to the thresher. Loading the rack so the bundles would not spill off required that wheat heads be directed inward and the butts outward at the right and left edges of the rack. Placing bundles between the two outer rows was less particular. Guiding the horses so the rack was close to the thresher's feeder trough without scraping the large drive belt got easier with practice. The fast-moving drive belt transferred power from the tractor to the thresher.
Arranging bundles on the rack that the pitchers placed up on the rack kept me busy, but the ride from the field to the thresher allowed for rest while the horses worked.
My farmer boss paid me about $1.25 a day that summer but I suggested that, since I was able to keep up with grown men who were paid $2.50 per day, I should be paid as much during harvest. He didn't take kindly to my suggestion, but I think we finally compromised.
