Threshing Machine, Southern Alberta, 1988

This thresher looks a bit like a duck billed platypus. I saw it alongside a road allowance in southern Alberta.
The purpose of this machine was to separate the grain from the straw. In the early part of the 20th century grain was cut, tied up into bundles and then stacked into stooks so that the grain could be dried in the field. When the grain was ready, the stooks were tossed onto horse drawn wagons and hauled to the threshing machine. There the stooks were hand tossed onto a conveyor which the carried the machine into the thresher. The threshed grain went into a grain wagon and the straw went out a large pipe to form a straw pile. The straw piles in any field were typically as large as a house.
Threshing was a very labour intensive operation. Threshing crews moved from field to field to complete their work as seasonal workers. Farmers' wives worked long days providing meals for the hungry crews.
By the late 20th century harvesting was highly mechanized. Grain was cut by swathers. The swathed grain laid in long lines in the fields for drying. When the grain was ready the swaths were picked up by a combine which separated the grain from the straw as the self-propelled machine moved along. The grain was loaded into large trucks that came alongside the combine and the straw was thrown out the back of the combine. Straw was usually picked up later by a baler. Large cylinderical bales of straw are seen stacked behind the threshing machine.