Since earliest times man has relied on wheat for his daily bread. For centuries the growing of wheat and the production of flour followed well-established methods and rituals. Sowing by hand, praying for good weather, scything in the fall and winnowing in the wind it was a labour intensive and often unreliable form of agriculture. The mechanization of wheat production took place essentially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but old ways did not immediately disappear. This photograph shows farmers stooking wheat by hand near Milo, Alberta, ca. 1923. It was not unusual at harvest time for women to work in the fields. This scene is symbolic of the methods that prevailed among the people who grew grains on the prairies for several generations before 1900.
