To cut the grain, gather it and thresh it was a long and arduous task in the days prior to mechanical aids. The plants were cut by hand, usually by sickle or scythe, forked into wagons to be carried from field to threshing floor and finally beaten with a flail to separate the grain from straw and chaff. Agricultural innovators tackled these processes step by step until finally a machine was devised to complete the entire operation at once. These combined harvesters, or combines, have been in widespread use only for the last forty years, however, and were preceded by a variety of simpler labour-saving machines.
One of the first, a product of the late nineteenth century, was a binder, which cut the grain and tied it into bundles. The binder's large blades, or vanes, turned slowly above a moving knife, pushing the grain against the cutting edge. As the stalks were severed from their roots, the blades deposited them on a flat canvas table. The table operated like a treadmill, carrying the stalks to a knot- tying device which automatically tied them into manageable sheaves. The heavy work then began. Three or four of these sheaves were collected and thrust into the soil, leaning against each other in a structure that was sufficiently firm to withstand prairie winds. These stooks left the heads of grain, or kernels, well above the ground and thus afforded some protection from late rains or early snow.
Harvesting required considerable labour, as a description of the cutting and gathering process suggests. The binder was faster and more efficient than scythe and fork but it still required several horses or oxen and a good many days of stooking. In this illustration, a young Saskatchewan farmer, named Hunt, operates the binder at his farm near Fiske in 1916. His wife drives the oxen. Their daughters, too young to be left alone, ride behind in a makeshift trailer.
