TRACTOR TRIVIA and other interesting stuff 3/21/2024

[953 nut 55,189]

Bringing in the sheaves

 

The practice of binding and tying cut grasses or grain stalks into sheaves is a step in the harvesting process. In earlier times, farmers cut grass and grain by hand using or scythes. Once cut, the stalks were bundled and bound into sheaves; the sheaves were bundled together upright to dry. These larger bundles, made up of sheaves, were called "shocks." When dry, the sheaves could be threshed. The seed was collected for food and the remaining straw was used as bedding for livestock.

Once the grain had been cut, sheaved, and stacked for drying a crew of men with pitchforks would pitch the sheaves onto a wagon for transportation to be thrashed.  After the bundles were dry, they were stored in a barn or a carefully built stack, and capped with prairie grass to shed rain until threshing time.

Once the threshing machine was invented the sheaves needed to be arranged with all the grain heads oriented in the same direction to allow the thrasher to remove the grain from the stems. Prior to the trashing machine it was yet another labor-intensive operation to remove the grain from the stem. This is also incorporated into the modern combine.

             

[Ed Kennell 38,138]

Thanks for bringing back the memories Richard.       I lived with my Grandad where we farmed about 25 acres mainly growing corn.  One year he planted around 10 acres in wheat.    I was probably 12 years old at the time and just big enough to swing the cradle.   He showed me how to cut and lay the wheat.in rows.    Then scoop an armfull and tie it into a sheave with a handfull of the straw.      The process was similar to this video except we separated and knotted the handfull of straw into two sections doubling it's length.  With this longer length, we could bundle and tie a much larger sheave than shown in this video.    Thankfully Pappy only planted wheat this one year.  I remember feeling I was trying to empty the ocean with a teacup as I started to cradle that ocean of wheat.

 

[JoeM 7,873]

I though the potato farm was rough.....that wheat harvest is a big deal by hand.

[953 nut 55,189]

21 minutes ago, Ed Kennell said:

just big enough to swing the cradle.   He showed me how to cut and lay the wheat.in rows.    Then scoop an armfull and tie it into a sheave with a handfull of the straw. 

One of my uncles bought a pull behind John Deere combine that had its own engine about the time I was born so I never experienced  swinging a cradle and tieing sheaves. I can remember seeing others using a horse drawn reaper that pushed the cut stalks off into small piles and they had to be hand tied.

 

 

 

 

[Lee1977 6,656]

I've picked a very small amount of cotton as a kid, that wasn't any fun either. 

[ebinmaine 67,424]

I still have the scythe my maternal Grampa used on his own land somewhere around a bajillion years ago. By the time I was a young 'un in the 70s he'd been mechanized for many years. 

 

With his slight guidance I taught myself how to properly swing a scythe as a teen,  simply out of curiosity. I remember it being fairly easy on good flat ground but I only did a VERY small area. 

 

Whippin' that all day would've been beyond my endurance even then. 

 

Huge respect for the manual means of harvesting.  

 

 

[Ed Kennell 38,138]

2 hours ago, ebinmaine said:

I taught myself how to properly swing a scythe as a teen

Learning to swing that grain cradle at 12 actually was good training for my first professional job where I paid into the social security system.

Our township mowed all the road berms with the scythe in the summer and cleared the snow from many roads with shovels in the winter.

I was employed by Southampton Township for a couple years doing this work starting at $0.67/ hour.    

The summer mowing work was hot and nasty with green briars and ground hornets.

The winter work was better.  We just hand shoveled the deep drifts where the plows could not push through.

[953 nut 55,189]

10 hours ago, JoeM said:

I though the potato farm was rough.....that wheat harvest is a big deal by hand.

Had a potato farm a few miles away, he would hire every kid he could find for spring planting and late summer harvest.  Never been as dirty in my life as I was after a day on the potato farm. The soil was a black sand and we had to hose off before coming into the house.

The potato harvester would dig under the row and lift the potatoes getting most of the soil off and then lay them in a row on top of the ground. We would ride on a two row skid laying down picking up the potatoes as we went along. The potatoes would be put on a troth and a person on the back would bag them from the troth. As I remember it he had five or six of these setups and we would start early in the morning and quit about eight at night. Hard work but he paid us well and his wife always fixed us a great lunch.

[JoeM 7,873]

8 hours ago, 953 nut said:

The potato harvester would dig under the row and lift the potatoes getting most of the soil off and then lay them in a row on top of the ground. We would ride on a two row skid laying down picking up the potatoes as we went along. The potatoes would be put on a troth and a person on the back would bag them from the troth. As I remember it he had five or six of these setups and we would start early in the morning and quit about eight at night. Hard work but he paid us well and his wife always fixed us a great lunch.

Not so modern for us and a lot smaller operation.

I remember riding on top of what a meg-shift digger that was made from a cultivator. it fluffed up the potatoes then we walked along and picked them and filled burlap sacks.

The guy was cheap as the come, small pay and It was bring you own lunch or eat a raw potatoes.

Did it a couple times then started working at a local garage assisting the mechanics. A way better gig for a 15 year old kid. 

[Handy Don 12,213]

Some of these early life experiences have really meaningful impacts on our lives, don’t they?

At 14, i worked for a couple weeks picking strawberries. We got paid by the heaped quart basket. I was hot, dirty, thirsty, and stooped over for hours. 

Impact on me?

I was doing it for pocket money but realized that for most of the others picking was their livelihood. My respect for farm laborers has never waned.

I also saw that the highest advancement the itinerant pickers could hope for was to be a field foreman or maybe a year-round farmhand. I had the opportunity, through education and support from my family, to reach for a higher economic level. I’ve never forgotten that.