Feature Article on threshing. Topic: AGRICULTURE
Written by Jim Sayre in May, 1998
THRESHING: A NEIGHBORLY THING TO DO |
June. Shelby County farmers are looking forward to the coming wheat harvest. But, it will be a solitary affair. Sitting alone in air-conditioned cabs atop their huge harvesters, today’s farmers experience a far different harvest from the threshing days that brought neighbors together for hard work, good talk, and food that fueled their bodies and created the legends of the "thrashin" meals. Memories by long-time Swanders-area farmers Bob Harshbarger and Russ Sayre follow this account of threshing days printed by an 1893 Sidney newspaper. 100 Years Ago: From the flail and the treadmill to the modern steam ‘thrashing’ machine, I.D. Hubbard tells the story of separating grain from the husks. Following are excerpts from his article in the Sept. 22, 1893, edition of the Shelby County Democrat: Maybe you are not a greenhorn in the matter of "thrashin." Maybe you can remember, if you were born in the country and your first birthday was long enough ago, how your father and your grandfather used to get up long before daylight in the cold winter time, and after eating breakfast by candle light go out to the barn and pound the grain out all day with flails. Deacon A... used to have his grain trod out by horses and it was lots of fun to go down there and help Jim A... drive the horses. Jim didn’t like to do it, but with him it was work, and he had to keep at it all day... he owns a "separator" and a steam engine to run it, and he does the "thrashin" for all his neighbors every fall. While you were yet a small boy the life of the flail and the treading out methods of thrashing came to an end, and their place was taken by wonderful machines... in one day three or four men and a team of horses working in a treadmill could thrash out as many bushels of oats or wheat as your father and grandfather could thrash with flails in weeks of strenuous pounding. If it was fun to watch Jim A... drive the horses when the grain was trodden out, it was joy unalloyed to see the new thrashing machine do its work. A man stood on the floor at one end and poked the bundles of grain into the mouth of the contrivance, and at the other end came out the straw, while the grain ran in a little stream into a measure or a bag at the side. How it was done you couldn’t understand, but you never got tired watching it, and you used to follow the machine to the neighboring farms. |
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