33

Livingston Grain Teams
1914
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

34

Threshing
1920
A field near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

35

Threshing into a Truck
1930
A field near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

36

Eventually, horses were replaced by gasoline powered trucks.

37

Mr. and Mrs. Rice burning the straw pile
1910
A field near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

38

After the harvest, and after enough straw had been collected and stored to provide bedding for the animals over the winter, the straw piles were burned. This got rid of the pile so the land below could be sown again the following year.

39

Rice's Burning Straw Pile
1910
A field near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

40

A Meal in the Field
1940
A field near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

41

Meals were served in the field to save time at harvest.

42

A Massey Harris Combine
1940
A field near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

43

Combines were the next technological breakthrough. Pulled by a tractor, the swather attachment that stuck out the side cut the plants and conveyed them into the combine to be threshed. This eliminated the need for binders, stooks, and wagon loads of bundles being hand-bombed into the stationary thresher. A combine drove around the field threshing the grain it had just cut, and leaving behind trails of straw and chaff - no more straw piles. The threshed grain was dropped into a truck to be hauled to the granary.

44

A Caterpillar pulling the new combine
1940
A farm near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

45

Campbell's Unloading the Combine Hopper
October, 1941
A field near Avonlea, Saskatchewan, Canada

46

The combine would stop periodically to unload the threshed grain from the hopper, or holding tank, located near the top. It would be shoveled into the far corners of the truck box until full. Then the truck load would be shovelled into a granary and then return to the combine.