Historic Hood River
“The evolution of the sickle and flail”
11-2-2023
Notes
I was just visiting wheat country a couple of weeks ago, so this Underwood & Underwood stereocard view of a 33 horse “combined harvester” grabbed my attention. The text on the reverse explains that a “combined harvester” like this does the work of a header, thresher, separator, fanning mill and sacker. It could cut from 60 to 125 acres in a day, threshing 1700 to 3000 bushels.
They claim the US produced 26% of the world’s wheat in 1901, with prices ranging from 61 1/2 to 95 cents per bushel. The USDA says today the US is still a major wheat exporter, but accounts for only 6-7% of the world supply, with corn and soybean acreage now exceeding wheat. Recent years have seen prices fluctuate from $4 to $11/ bushel.
Category: default
Tags: 1900s, combine, horse, stereocard, Underwood&Underwood, Walla Walla, Washington, wheat
Tags: 1900s, combine, horse, stereocard, Underwood&Underwood, Walla Walla, Washington, wheat
L. E.
Quite the set up!
My grandmother grew up in the Palouse wheat country. I remember her saying fire was their biggest fear. Looking at this photo….I can understand that.
I wonder how long it took to get everything harnessed. I assume at lunch time, you would let the horses eat and drink. I wonder what that entailed.
Kalley
20 Mule Team Borax and their team of mules has nothing on this team of horses! Just the training of the horses had to be quite an undertaking. Then the maintenance of the equipment was a lot of work too. I would have loved to see it all in action.
Arlen L sheldrake
another example of “the good olde days”….NOT. five guys working the harvester….natural AC. yes an amazing amount of prep and post work. probably not far off from robots doing this….
jnails
So are the three horses in the front considered to be the ‘lead horses’?
Pat A
The guy (daredevil)out front and high above out on that ladder perch is leading the team. Giles French wrote about his experience out front!
Very heavy Combine. The horses and workers definitely needed a mid day meal, thus the cook wagon and the gals who worked as hard as the men!
And glass balls of carbon tetrachloride to throw at any threat of fire.
Many of these still set next to the last field they harvested.
judy nelson
Searched around but could not find anything on line from Giles French, except for a primitive park dedicated to him.
Found an interesting site to get lost in – Archives
West. Leads to a number of citizens who documented their life and memories in Oregon. Stored with 8 pages of references to them.
Pat A
Judy try looking for.
Giles L. French. Author of the Golden Land, Oregon state legislator.
Publisher of the Sherman co Journal.
Pat A
After 20ish years,I just found The Golden land by Giles French available and ordered it.
Very excited!
John E. "Jack" Sheppard
You have to remember: Those horses didn’t just pull a heavy machine over hill and swale, they had to also supply the ground power to run all of the internal machinery!
They hitched their heaviest horses close to the machine. These were the wheel horses that had a tongue in the middle by which to steer the front axle.
They hitched the best trained, experienced horses out front. Reins don’t work so well over that distance so they used a jerkine–a single rope to the point teams bridles to alert the horse to a turn coming up, or a stop, or whatever, and directed the horse by voice command.
In the middle, between the point team and the wheel horses, were whatever pulling stock you could scare up. Horses don’t live forever and a real breaking and training of that many horses is a monumental job. A lot of horses endured on-the-job training. But they managed. But they were all glad to see Holt Tractors show up in the early 20th century!
Years ago I had the great good fortune to be acquainted with some old timers that had worked on the ground-power combines, and there wasn’t a nickel-worth of nostalgia among them.
L. E.
Thank you Jack Sheppard for your explanation.
My dad was born in 1926. I was born in 1949. I once said, I would have no idea how to harness and hitch up a team. My dad replied that he could do it blindfolded.
That is how rapidly our methods of farming changed. I don’t think he had any desire to go back to farming with the horse method.