132 Old Bays on the Farm 



along for use on the horse-power. I presume, even 

 most folks, in this day, would know a horse-power 

 at sight. It was a combination of one great 

 cogged, metal wheel and several smaller ones and 

 had wooden arms extending from the centre to 

 which the horses were attached. The teams went 

 around in a circle and the driver, with a whip of 

 wood and buckskin, stood on a small platform in 

 the centre of the merry-go-round affair. It was 

 quite a science to keep five teams pulling steadily 

 and if this were not effected, the result would be 

 varying speed in the threshing machine and that 

 meant poorly threshed grain. A trained driver 

 could tell by the roar of the machinery if the 

 proper speed was being maintained and so cracked 

 his whip accordingly. 



In those days a barn would usually be packed 

 to the roof as there was little or no early thresh- 

 ing and there would often be a stack of grain be- 

 hind the barn as well — an overflow, as it were, that 

 could not be stored inside. It was often a two- 

 day job to thresh out a farmer's crop. The ma- 

 chines in use then were smaller and the power 

 limited to the dynamic energy ten horses could 

 supply. 



MACHINE, WELL NAMBD'I 



1 recall that, as a small boy, I was lifted up 

 by a thresherman that I might gaze into the greedy 

 maw that contained the buzzing cylinder of the 



