Threshing Day 137 



THRESHING ON THE PEAIRIES 



In my liomesteading days in the Northwest I 

 saw power for threshing operated with oxen, but the 

 teams moved too slowly and had to be rested often. 

 The driver told me the animals got dizzy going 

 around in a circle, and, to get best results, the crit- 

 ters should be unhitched frequently and turned 

 about in the opposite direction to take the twists 

 out of them. Of course, he was just stringing me. 



During one of the *4ean" years in the West, in 

 the early eighties, many of us far Western home- 

 steaders had difficulty in keeping the wolf from 

 the door, indeed, some of us held that the wolves 

 were in packs. Along with others of my neigh- 

 bours I journeyed down into Manitoba and joined 

 a threshing outfit. Wages were small but we 

 needed the money real badly, consequently we put 

 pride and the agricultural independence engend- 

 ered within us by the ownership of prairie home- 

 steads, behind us, and ''hired out." 



The party to which I was attached went thresh- 

 ing on the plains about Portage La Prairie, then 

 one of the most prosperous farm settlements in 

 the West. For four wrecks we threshed in the fields 

 and for many weeks longer from the stacks. Not 

 a drop of rain fell in all that time. It was an ideal 

 season for saving the Western crop. We had an 

 ox-team and a horse-team with us — the former 

 hauled the engine, brought water in a tank and 

 pulled the straw away from the rear of the ma- 



