Dakota Farmer

Slideshow: Generations of old farm iron enthusiasts celebrate past harvest technology.

Curt Arens, Editor, Nebraska Farmer

October 29, 2020

6 Slides

Few farmers can recall the bygone era when horses or steam tractors operated a threshing machine, separating wheat or oats from the straw and chaff. Reunions of those veteran threshers and the next generations of old farm iron enthusiasts still gather across the country each year, to network with each other and to relive old-time technology on the farm.

While COVID-19 canceled several of these threshing shows this year, some still took place, including the 34th annual Menno Pioneer Power Show, held at Pioneer Acres in Menno, S.D. Like many threshing shows, the Menno gathering includes a flea market, family activities and a toy show. But the main feature is always the demonstrations, particularly steam powered threshing.

Menno also spotlights an antique tractor pull, as well as corn cutting, binding and chopping, corn shelling, old-time hay baling, a sawmill and steam engine plowing. The antique tractor parade is a daily highlight at Menno.

Generations, young and old, can learn a lot from attending a threshing reunion. Here are three takeaways:

1. Farmers have always worked hard. If you watch farmers feeding the firebox of a steam tractor with wood, or pitching wheat bundles into a threshing machine, you recognize the long, sweaty hours that were spent in the fields over the past century in agriculture.

Farmers have always been hard workers, and although they may have air-conditioned comfort in their cabs today, they still put in long hours in the field, and even longer hours managing their acres for efficiency and profit.

2. Technology is not new. Today, we talk about the high technological advances of drones, precision farming tools, autosteer and variable rate application, but just after the turn of the last century in 1900, agriculture experienced a technological revolution. This moved from real, oats-eating horsepower, to steam tractors, to gasoline and diesel by the middle of the 1900s.

These changes occurred within the lifetimes of many farmers living and working today. It is conceivable that a farmer in his 90s right now could have worked his land with horses in his youth, and today uses his smartphone to turn on his center pivot irrigation.

3. Steam tractors are special. When the first J.I. Case 150 steam tractor was tested, it weighed in at around 60,000 pounds, or 30 tons. A 1915 Case steam tractor with 65 belt horsepower and 40 drawbar horsepower had a maximum speed of 2.4 miles per hour, but the massive machine weighed 20,600 pounds, without the water.

Steam tractors over the years came in different shapes and sizes, but their extreme size for the day, the sounds they made in the field and the work they could accomplish, were memorable.

It is amazing to watch these old relics fire up at threshing bees. They serve as a tribute to those who have paved the way for agriculture advancement today, all while engaging a new generation of enthusiasts into the romanticism of the steam age on the farm.

About the Author(s)

Curt Arens

Editor, Nebraska Farmer

Curt Arens began writing about Nebraska’s farm families when he was in high school. Before joining Farm Progress as a field editor in April 2010, he had worked as a freelance farm writer for 27 years, first for newspapers and then for farm magazines, including Nebraska Farmer.

His real full-time career, however, during that same period was farming his family’s fourth generation land in northeast Nebraska. He also operated his Christmas tree farm and grew black oil sunflowers for wild birdseed. Curt continues to raise corn, soybeans and alfalfa and runs a cow-calf herd.

Curt and his wife Donna have four children, Lauren, Taylor, Zachary and Benjamin. They are active in their church and St. Rose School in Crofton, where Donna teaches and their children attend classes.

Previously, the 1986 University of Nebraska animal science graduate wrote a weekly rural life column, developed a farm radio program and wrote books about farm direct marketing and farmers markets. He received media honors from the Nebraska Forest Service, Center for Rural Affairs and Northeast Nebraska Experimental Farm Association.

He wrote about the spiritual side of farming in his 2008 book, “Down to Earth: Celebrating a Blessed Life on the Land,” garnering a Catholic Press Association award.

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