CHAPTER JX 

 Theeshinq Dat 



TVyfOST every one who knows anything of coun- 

 •*■■'- try life has some knowledge of a "threshing 

 day" on the farm — that's the occasion when with 

 the assistance ot his neighbours, a farmer has his 

 grain separated from the chaff and straw incident 

 to its growth. In the good old days, long before 

 the modern steam threshing outfit was thought of, 

 the flail, or, as it was sometimes termed, "the 

 poverty stick" was in general use. 



When I was a boy there were several flails 

 about our barn, although the horse-power and 

 separator were then in evidence. Peas were usu- 

 ally flailed out and sometimes tramped or treaded 

 out with oxen or horses on the ground just as in 

 Biblical times the husbandmen separated the com 

 from the straw and chaff. It was held by some 

 old-time farmers that peas were too much split or 

 broken, by the threshing machine, and that the 

 straw was reduced almost to cut feed and dust. 

 Most farmers kept sheep then and clean pea-straw 

 was looked on as a favourite food for the wool- 

 producers. 



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