Farming at the turn of the

19^th Century

       
       
Special thanks to Evelyn Kunz Gaffney, who wrote the largest portion of this section.

            Becoming a landholder was not a promise of an easy life ahead. Fierce dust storms whirled across the land, sometimes blowing seeded wheat right out of the ground.  Invasive weeds like cheat grass, brought in during the late 1800s with imported seed, cut into grain yields.  In the late teens and through the twenties, severe drought withered crop after crop, topsoil blew away. But these hardy souls weren’t expecting a soft existence.  The men and the women folk both were conditioned to tedious work and knew that life would be a struggle. One of the hardships was the godforsaken appearing area of scrub land and rock. There were also crop robbers in the form of squirrels and jack rabbits. And then there was Russian thistle and Jim Hill mustard.

            In the late 1890s and early 20th century, heading and thrashing was the standard harvest procedure. The header was a mechanical devise made of sprockets and chains and a draper or canvas being pushed along toward the header box. The header was rigged up to the horses with the yoke, forcing the machine to be pushed, not pulled.  The business end of the machine moved into the field first. Sitting on the end of the machine between the six horses, was the driver or “header puncher.”  The cutting swath of a header was usually 12 feet.  The wheat was cut by the sickle bar and carried as loose stalks on elevator drapes to be spilled out into the wagon.  Then the wagons carried the loose stalks of wheat to the thrasher.

            The stationary thrashing machine was run by a steam engine, the steam being created by the burning of the chaff. The team of horses pushed the header and along side that a team pulled the header box. The loose stalks of wheat were thrust across into the header box which, when full, was drawn to the stationary thrasher where the kernels were separated from the chaff and augered into sacks.  One man held the position of jig.  He sat at the end of the auger and bounced (jiggled) the sack to be sure it was filled evenly for efficiency.  The sack sewer was speedy so as not to lose any kernels of wheat being sent into the sacks.  The sacks were stacked in the barn until such time that it could be hauled into Wilbur to the railroad station and to be sold.¹
 

Stacking wheat sacks, three men high

            The stacking of the sacks itself was an art. They stacked eight sacks high at the back of the barn or shed, then stacked six sacks high in front of that, and then four sacks high in front of that.  This tiered effect gave them the ability to climb the stacks to pile much higher than their heads.  In fact, a great photograph indicated the ceiling of the barn may have been 20 feet high and at least three times or more, higher than the height of any man.²

            The 1929 issue of Combine Yearbook told of the history of the combine.  They called it the “combined harvester” because it combined the jobs of cutting and threshing into one operation –  into one machine.  In a single sweep the grain was cut, separated and sacked.³

            The farm was large and the work seemed never done. When the engine was shut down at mealtime, the most appreciated workers on the ranch were the cooks. Always meat, potatoes, home-made bread, vegetables and desserts would be devoured by crews of sometimes up to 25 men. The cookhouse was a wagon on wheels and was pulled from field to field by its own team of horses.  It had a cook stove at one end and tables lined each side rowed by benches.   The cook house was powerfully hot and the only movement of air was from two boards along the outside that could be lifted up for ventilation.  Sleep was not the best in these accommodations: either the floor of the cookhouse or off to the side in a tent. The cooks woke at 3 a.m so breakfast could be ready by five.  They baked batches of bread two or three times a day as they not only served three meals, but sandwiches and coffee for mid-morning and mid-afternoon.⁴  

            As a part of the threshing crew was a “roust-about” who was responsible for just about everything no one else was doing. That ranged from trips to town for groceries and parts to bringing wood from the farmstead and splitting it for the cook stove.⁵


            The harvest crew had a routine of activities strictly adhered to. The men got up at 4 a.m. to get the horses ready. The driver was responsible for nine head.  The rest were cared for by the sack sewer, sack-jig and header puncher who took six apiece.  The duties required were feeding, watering, currying and harnessing. The currying was more important than one might think.  It made the horses look better, it soothed them, but it also prevented dirt from building up in the hair, which could result in sores as the harness rubbed against the skin. After the horses were fed and harnessed, the men ate their breakfast and were out in the field by 6 a.m.

            The lunch hour was not spent resting. The horses were brought in and fed from the feed rack that had been hauled out to wherever the outfit was working. It was the driver’s job to work out any sores the horses might have gotten through the morning. He would rub salve on the sore spots to assist in healing. At night the horses were tied up and it was the same process. The harnesses were removed, the horses fed and curried and left to rest through the night.


            And the butchering!  Oh my!  To kill a hog they had to lead the filthy hog to the scalding board.  Or if they needed to haul the dead hog to the work space, they tied a rope to the hind legs and pulled the hog over the ground to the scalding boards. This whole task of butchering a hog had to be done in freezing weather or you lose your meat.  Knives had to be sharpened and the water boiling.  Boiling water was poured over one side of the hog and then the hide scraped clean. Same on the other side.  The hog bristles and scalded skin stunk like half boiled flesh and wet hair.  After the hog is scraped came the real hard work:  the butchering.

            A butcher knife slits the shanks of the back feet so there was room between the bones and the tendons to place a stick.  The hog was then dragged to a pole leaning in the forks of an apple tree.  Somehow they manipulated the sticks so that eventually the hog was hanging off the ground. They cut the guts out, and cut off the head with an axe. Sometimes they saved the brains.

            Then the pieces were cut:  hams, midlings and loins; the ribs were sawed in sections.  With a paring knife they carved off the streaked bacon. The last job was the salting before they put it in the smokehouse.


            In the 1950s, remote control was tried.  The cat driver didn’t need any help to run this combine.  He could control the combine motor, raise or lower the header, and dump a tank full of wheat into the bed of the truck from the seat of his cat. This was done by hydraulic controls.⁶

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¹  Kirby Brumfield.  This Was Wheat Farming: A Pictorial History of the Farms and Farmers of the Northwest Who Grew the Nation’s Bread, p 57.