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Fig. 5. (a) Cutting and loading wheat in the field with a header into a header wagon for transport to a threshing site. The header is equipped with a reel that lays the wheat stalks across a reciprocating sickle bar for cutting standing grain and onto a canvas platform for elevating into the wagon. It is ground driven, cuts a swath 3.5 to 6 m wide, and is pushed from the rear by six horses. Photo courtesy Terry Olson family, Ritzville, WA. (b) Stationary threshing. The wheat spikes and straw on the header wagon lay on a rope netting that holds the load together as it is lifted off by the derrick with a rope and pulley and dropped beside the thresher. From there it is hand pitched into the thresher that separates the grain from straw with grain fed into sacks and the straw blown into a pile. The thresher is belt powered by a steam engine that burns wheat straw. This mode of harvesting required up to 30 men to operate and was common during the last decades of the 1800s and was replaced by the combine in the early 1900s. Photo from Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA, L83-113.48.
