Harvest Time

Up to the mid-1960’s, all farmers on P.E.I. harvested their grain (oats, wheat, and barley crops) with a binder. This machine cut the grain, and tied it into bundles, called “sheaves”. This was always done in August.

The sheaves were stacked upright in the fields in groups of six, called “stooks”. This allowed the grain to dry and mature in the field. Once dry, the sheaves were loaded onto wagons and stacked near the barn under a roof-type structure called a “barrack”.

The kernels had to be separated from the straw. This was called “threshing”. A lot of farmers had their own small thresher, powered by a tractor or a single cylinder engine.

In Valleyfield and Upper Montague, my father joined with other farmers and hired a large custom thresher to come to the individual farms and thresh the grain crop. It took about ten men to operate this machine so ten farmers would join together and help each other with the crop. One day per farm, every day for two weeks, during September. All the men still had to do morning and evening chores and the milking to do, but no one seemed to mind.

The noon time meal was provided by the host farm wife so ten extra guys for dinner that day!

My father, being Dutch and new to the area, made a lot of friends at these harvest episodes.

He often took me with him. I would steer the tractor in the fields between the stooks of grain while the men loaded the wagons. Imagine being four or five years old and driving every tractor in the neighbourhood.

One lunchtime I remember was at an older bachelor farmer’s. He didn’t have much ready for dinner but all the men good-naturedly chipped in, making sandwiches and tea. he didn’t have any milk but he poured some evaporated milk into a cup, poured in hot water, and that was my drink.

A common practice, if the tea was too hot, was to pour some into the saucer to cool it quicker. Those big farmer hands could balance a saucer without spilling a drop!

These harvest excursions stopped about 1966 when combine harvesters became more common. I am glad that I was a small part of this bygone activity.

Submitted by Peter Verleun, April 2026.