While most prairie farmers may have been reluctant to hire farm workers, the requirement for additional labour was extremely great before World War I because certain facets of farming were very labour-intensive and because the agricultural industry was expanding so rapidly. Experienced workers from English-speaking countries were in greatest demand but they were also hardest to attract. The only way to entice them to the Prairies was to offer them such things as land and social status.
Although this drawing entitled "Steam Grain Threshing in the Field, Canadian Northwest", which appeared in a publicity newspaper called appropriately The Emigrant on 1 August 1886, was relatively accurate on the threshing process, it contains at least two examples of misrepresentation of the typical prairie farm. The first is the substantial dwelling and large outbuildings set among mature trees in the distance, hardly attainable by the typical immigrant even after a decade of hard work. More prominent is the individual in the foreground directing operations from the back of a horse while before him stretched his domain. The illustration implies that this future awaited all prospective emigrants. It certainly was not the future of most of those labouring to keep up with the unrelenting pace of the threshing machine. In the background, a wagon is being loaded with stooks, and in the centre of the picture men are loading stooks into the agitator or threshing machine which separates the grain from the straw and chaff. The threshing machine was driven by a belt connected to the power take-off on the steam engine on the left. Grain pouring out of the chute was bagged by the crew in front at the right to be stored or taken to the nearest railway centre. The straw dropped off the conveyor to the rear, piles of which can be seen in the distance.
