Saturday, June 16, 2012

Weekend Steam: Transitions

Uncle Percy was a small time thresherman in the Dahlgren community, and his little threshing machine traveled only to farms centered around his ground.  The fellow on the right is Clark Fields, and judging from his appearance, this photo was taken around 1940.  Steam engines were being phased out by this time, and Percy is pulling his threshing machine with a 15-30 McCormick-Deering tractor; note the front wheel in the corner of the photo.  The rest of the photo could have been taken from about 1906 on, when wind stackers replaced web stackers on threshers, making for impressive straw stacks, but requiring more horsepower, which in turn made for bigger steam engines.  Combined harvesters (Combines)were already coming into the marketplace when this photo was taken, and after World War II threshing rings vanished rapidly as farmers acquired modern tractors and combines.

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