Before the invention of the threshing machine, separating the grain or seeds from the stalk was a time-consuming task.

Friday, September 15, 2000

Before the invention of the threshing machine, separating the grain or seeds from the stalk was a time-consuming task.

The usual method in ancient times was to spread the grain on the ground and beat it. A person would kneel, and beat the heads of the spread grain, turning it from time to time, until all the grain was separated from the heads.

Even today in some third-world countries, the task of threshing is accomplished with no special machines. The members of a village in Nepal accomplish their threshing by laying the grain out on the road, where the occasional passing car will drive over it.

In the United States, however, threshing took a more sophisticated route. With the mention of threshing, pictures of a past when teams of threshers would travel the country with their great machines come into the mind’s eye.

Although the machines could harvest at a miraculous pace, plenty of men and boys still were needed to keep the threshing process going.

"Once they were water boys, who dreamed of being engineers, when threshing season arrived in the Heartland," a Herald farm editor wrote 10 years ago about the people at an antique engine and threshing show.

"Some were bundle haulers and others worked in the dust and chaff beneath the separator. The double-cylinder, heavy-geared, coal, wood and straw-fed engines filled the skies with black smoke 80 years ago and the memories linger.

Threshing was hot dangerous work. Men’s clothes could become caught in belts and pulleys. Steam burns were a painful reminder of getting too close too often. A careless worker could step on a pitchfork.

The meals after the day’s work was done are almost as legendary as the threshing adventure itself. Does the phrase "enough food for a threshing crew" ring a bell?

Farm wives would prepare soup, steaks, potatoes, beans, cabbage, corn, homemade pie and slices of melon in season, all to be washed down with a fresh glass of milk or lemonade.

However, as an Aultman and Taylor – the godfather of threshing machine manufacturers – promotional writer observed, "the American farmer adapts himself with amazing alertness to the labor-saving devices of a progressive age." He, however, was talking about the latest model of threshing machine.

Today we have the combine and the old threshing machines are antiques and museum pieces only.