The invention and adoption of the combine greatly improved the efficiency of grain harvesting. Instead of handling each stem of grain multiple times - cutting with the grain binder, shocking, pitching each bundle onto a wagon, hauling it to the threshing machine and pitching each bundle into the machine - a single trip across the field cut the grain and separates the grain from the straw.
If the straw were to be used as bedding for cattle, as in our local dairy land, another trip across the field was needed to bale the straw and haul it to the barn. But even though most farmers agreed that loose straw from threshing was preferable to the compact baled straw, the advantages of combining far outweighed the relative labor inefficiency of cutting, shocking, and threshing. The combine was here to stay.
Unrealized at the time, with its greater efficiency, the combine changed the sociology of farm life. In this neck of the woods, silo filling and shredding rings continued to function for a time, but they lacked the aura of the threshing rings of old. The combine and passing of the annual threshing ritual brought with it a permanent loss of neighborhood identity and cohesion.
When I wrote on this topic several years ago, many readers enthusiastically told me of their memories of their particular threshing ring. Notwithstanding the hard labor involved, threshing was a social occasion, complete with its unique brand of hi-jinx. A typical prank would be to tie a bundle to the bottom of a wagon. As the farmer was pitching bundles into the machine and reached the bottom of the load, one bundle would be impossible to lift up with his pitchfork.
One guy told me of a farmer in his threshing ring that habitually left a chaw of tobacco on a fence post over the dinner hour, to be renewed after dinner. Wow. What a tempting opportunity for a prankster to enhance it with a foreign substance, chicken droppings, for example.
Threshing rings had their rigid codes of ethics and behavior. No, nothing as silly as "strategic planning," mission statements, or quantifiable goals, objectives and performance standards characteristic of the stasis and myopia of bureaucracies, be they political, military, academic, government, or corporate. The code was implicit, unwritten.
No member of the crew wanted to be the last to show up. Of course, someone had to be last, but best not to be too noticeably or consistently last. Loads of bundles were of an implicitly proscribed standard size. To head to the threshing machine with an uncommonly small load was a distinct "no, no." But loading it too high had several counts against it. The loader didn't want to be labeled a "show off," thinking he had to load higher than everyone else. The higher the load, the tougher it was on the pitcher - I know because that was my job. And, on these side hills north of Monroe, a high, carelessly made load risked tipping over on the way to the thresher, subjecting the loader to good-natured ribbing from those who loaded sensibly.
Bundles were pitched into the threshing machine from each side. The first wagon to the machine could choose the windward side to unload, leaving the other unloader to receive the inevitable chaff and dust around the machine.
Threshing crews worked cooperatively and spirits were generally high, with occasional minor exceptions. Like when Carl, our hired man, was pitching bundles to Hank Leuzinger. Carl placed his hand over the intake of Hank's Allis Chalmers, causing it to sputter. That evening during milking time, Carl was fuming over how Hank made a menacing gesture at him with his pitchfork. Besides, Carl insisted that Hank didn't feed bundles into the machine evenly as was the correct way.
Nothing came of the incident - just a couple of young Swiss boys letting off steam. Did Hank feed bundles properly into the machine? No one will ever know, and in the long run it doesn't matter. As the great 20th Century economist John Maynard Keynes dryly observed, "In the long run, we're all dead."
Then there was Fritzi Messmer who owned the rocky 160 acres, now the Rolling Hills Subdivision, that borders our east 60 acres along Wisconsin 69. Fritzi was a man of firm opinion, not unusual among Schweitzers, but arguably more firm than most. Among Fritzi's firm opinions was that he would be a better farmer than his renters, including his then-current renter, one John Pattinson, a Norwegian originally from over in Lafayette County.
When pitching bundles to Pattinson, I recall him asking, "Are all these old Schweitzers as ornery as Fritzi? Your dad doesn't seem to be that way."
"No," I replied, "My dad is pretty easy going." He then proceeded to entertain me during the entire load with stories of his rocky relationship with Fritzi.
By the early 1950s, we knew that threshing days were numbered. Threshing machines throughout the nation were falling silent.
I don't recall if it was on the Waelti farm or one of our neighbors, but it was either the 1953 or '54 season. The last oat bundle is pitched into the machine. The last kernel of oats slides down the chute into the waiting truck. The last blade of straw is blown into the barn.
Herby Scherer climbs onto his Oliver and throttles down the engine. The pulley driving the belt that powers the machine slows down, inertia still powering the machine, but ever more slowly.
Slower and slower, the belt moves, finally becoming still, the moving parts of that magnificent machine now motionless and silent - forever.
That moment, and moments like it throughout the nation, mark the changing sociology of farm life.
The tagline of Monroe's National Historic Cheesemaking Museum is appropriate for the passing of threshing - "An era that was, that will never be again."
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in The Monroe Times.
If the straw were to be used as bedding for cattle, as in our local dairy land, another trip across the field was needed to bale the straw and haul it to the barn. But even though most farmers agreed that loose straw from threshing was preferable to the compact baled straw, the advantages of combining far outweighed the relative labor inefficiency of cutting, shocking, and threshing. The combine was here to stay.
Unrealized at the time, with its greater efficiency, the combine changed the sociology of farm life. In this neck of the woods, silo filling and shredding rings continued to function for a time, but they lacked the aura of the threshing rings of old. The combine and passing of the annual threshing ritual brought with it a permanent loss of neighborhood identity and cohesion.
When I wrote on this topic several years ago, many readers enthusiastically told me of their memories of their particular threshing ring. Notwithstanding the hard labor involved, threshing was a social occasion, complete with its unique brand of hi-jinx. A typical prank would be to tie a bundle to the bottom of a wagon. As the farmer was pitching bundles into the machine and reached the bottom of the load, one bundle would be impossible to lift up with his pitchfork.
One guy told me of a farmer in his threshing ring that habitually left a chaw of tobacco on a fence post over the dinner hour, to be renewed after dinner. Wow. What a tempting opportunity for a prankster to enhance it with a foreign substance, chicken droppings, for example.
Threshing rings had their rigid codes of ethics and behavior. No, nothing as silly as "strategic planning," mission statements, or quantifiable goals, objectives and performance standards characteristic of the stasis and myopia of bureaucracies, be they political, military, academic, government, or corporate. The code was implicit, unwritten.
No member of the crew wanted to be the last to show up. Of course, someone had to be last, but best not to be too noticeably or consistently last. Loads of bundles were of an implicitly proscribed standard size. To head to the threshing machine with an uncommonly small load was a distinct "no, no." But loading it too high had several counts against it. The loader didn't want to be labeled a "show off," thinking he had to load higher than everyone else. The higher the load, the tougher it was on the pitcher - I know because that was my job. And, on these side hills north of Monroe, a high, carelessly made load risked tipping over on the way to the thresher, subjecting the loader to good-natured ribbing from those who loaded sensibly.
Bundles were pitched into the threshing machine from each side. The first wagon to the machine could choose the windward side to unload, leaving the other unloader to receive the inevitable chaff and dust around the machine.
Threshing crews worked cooperatively and spirits were generally high, with occasional minor exceptions. Like when Carl, our hired man, was pitching bundles to Hank Leuzinger. Carl placed his hand over the intake of Hank's Allis Chalmers, causing it to sputter. That evening during milking time, Carl was fuming over how Hank made a menacing gesture at him with his pitchfork. Besides, Carl insisted that Hank didn't feed bundles into the machine evenly as was the correct way.
Nothing came of the incident - just a couple of young Swiss boys letting off steam. Did Hank feed bundles properly into the machine? No one will ever know, and in the long run it doesn't matter. As the great 20th Century economist John Maynard Keynes dryly observed, "In the long run, we're all dead."
Then there was Fritzi Messmer who owned the rocky 160 acres, now the Rolling Hills Subdivision, that borders our east 60 acres along Wisconsin 69. Fritzi was a man of firm opinion, not unusual among Schweitzers, but arguably more firm than most. Among Fritzi's firm opinions was that he would be a better farmer than his renters, including his then-current renter, one John Pattinson, a Norwegian originally from over in Lafayette County.
When pitching bundles to Pattinson, I recall him asking, "Are all these old Schweitzers as ornery as Fritzi? Your dad doesn't seem to be that way."
"No," I replied, "My dad is pretty easy going." He then proceeded to entertain me during the entire load with stories of his rocky relationship with Fritzi.
By the early 1950s, we knew that threshing days were numbered. Threshing machines throughout the nation were falling silent.
I don't recall if it was on the Waelti farm or one of our neighbors, but it was either the 1953 or '54 season. The last oat bundle is pitched into the machine. The last kernel of oats slides down the chute into the waiting truck. The last blade of straw is blown into the barn.
Herby Scherer climbs onto his Oliver and throttles down the engine. The pulley driving the belt that powers the machine slows down, inertia still powering the machine, but ever more slowly.
Slower and slower, the belt moves, finally becoming still, the moving parts of that magnificent machine now motionless and silent - forever.
That moment, and moments like it throughout the nation, mark the changing sociology of farm life.
The tagline of Monroe's National Historic Cheesemaking Museum is appropriate for the passing of threshing - "An era that was, that will never be again."
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in The Monroe Times.
