This series of images were found by Sharon (Bullock) Rush in a collection of family photographs. Although they obviously depict various parts of the threshing process associated with harvesting rice and oats before "combines," or self-propelled combined harvesting machines, replaced binders and threshing "separators. Although the individuals pictures are unknown, Sharon assumes they are various workers of the Rush family farm. [Double click to enlarge.]
Pictured above is a rare recording of the gathering by horse-drawn wagon of the sheaths of grain left to dry in carefully collected "shocks" before being deposited in the great McCormick Deering separator -- long before the coming of the grain "dryer" that cut short the process. [Collecting the "shocks" left by the binder was a skilled process carefully explained to me by Darrell Gardner during my recent visit to the Bluff.]
Albin Anderson on wagon; Howard Bullock on truck
The separated grain was re-lifted directly into a waiting truck.
And the whole operation relied on the power of a single tractor that powered a very long belt to the threshing machine by its flywheel.
A marvelous portrait of an unknown harvester atop a mound of collected grain set against a clear sky
The machine pictured above as it is today long retired and on display at the Rush farm on Rush Lane near Crockett's Bluff.
Colored pictures by Ken Shireman
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