Rural Life and the Rural School — Joseph Kennedy

" ...]interspersed with plowing and threshing. Then came corn cutting, potato digging, and corn husking. Threshing.-In those days most of the work around a threshing machine was also done by hand. There was no self-feeding apparatus and no band-cutting device; there was no straw-blower and no measuring and weighing attachments. It usually required about a dozen "hands" to do all the work. These men worked strenuously and usually in dusty places. The only redeeming feature of the business was the opportunity given for ...]."