Agriculture – Heritage Place Museum

Agriculture

June 22 2017

Haying Time

John Stories by Walter Billings Agriculture, Elizabethtown Township Ontario, John Johnston Faring, Lyn Ontario, Walter Billings 0

From the book “How Dear to My Heart” by Walter Kilborn Billings

The modern way of caring for the hay crop seems a far cry from the old way in which the weather had a lot to do with curing and stacking.

The horse fork for unloading was a wonderful improvement, as before it was installed, one man passed the hay to a scaffold at the big beam of the barn and another passed it on up to the man in the hay mow. With the horse fork, when help was scarce and a horse was trained to draw the load, one man could unload his wagon alone, the hay being left to be spread around later.

My first memory of haying time was when we had the old wooden horse rake, which I have described in another article. I have heard Father say that for a couple of years after coming to the farm he cut the hay and grain by hand. However, for cutting the grain a cradle was used. This consisted of a scythe with extra prongs, nearly the length of the blade, one above the other, that caught the grain when it fell and laid it in neat shape the heads all pointing one way. Thus the one following to bind the sheaves could, with the aid of a wooden hand rake, draw it together, make a band of a handful of the straw and with a neat twist of the ends secure the sheaf and leave it to be stoked up.

**1874 Advertisement for Cossitt Bros. Agricultural Machinery**

About the year 1870 we purchased a new mowing machine. It was manufactured by Cossitt Bros., then of Smiths Falls, (later moved to Brockville) and sold by Edward Glazier. This was a great improvement on the hand cutting. The frame was made of oak, and for thirty-five years it did all the cutting of hay on the farm. A year later a reaper attachment was purchased. This consisted of a platform fitted to the cutting bar and bolted to the frame of the mower at the back; an iron wheel at the other side of the platform carried its weight, and a reel similar to the ones used on the binder of later years held the grain to the knives. On the centre of the platform a post secured with a saddle and breast-plate, so that a man could stand and support himself in the saddle, rest his chest against the breast-plate and with a fork gather the grain from the knives, pass it over to his left until he had enough to make a sheaf, and then with his fork, place the bundle behind the mower, ready to be tied. This mower is now in the museum of the Experimental Farm at Ottawa, with a lot of other farm machinery of ancient manufacture.

Later a self-raking reaper was purchased, but the bundles of grain still had to be tied by hand. As binders were beginning to be used locally about the year 1892, a second had Chatham binder, a cumbersome machine, with a wooden frame, was secured and the three neighbours, Father, Horton Rowsom and Will Morrison, managed to get it in working order. It cut the grain on the three farms but the next season the knotter refused to work. The lever that started the tying part having been damaged, the result was that the grain would fill up the knotter and the lever would have to be pulled by hand.

Horton Rowsom had a hired man, Ed Haywood. He tied a strong chord to this lever, walked along beside the knotter and when enough grain was in place would pull this cord. So Ed had a job, and all through the harvest he walked around the field pulling the string. Ed was a war veteran from the British army, who had come to Canada One day he ran away with a woman, went over the river and they were married. Ed said afterwards, it was awful rough crossing the river and it had been rough ever since! His wife finally left him, and he made his home with the Rowsoms.

In 1894 I had a trip to Manitoba with Horton Rowsom and Stewart Morrison, on one of the Harvest Excursions. There I had a chance to see the new Massey-Harris and Deering binders in operation. The next year a Massey-Harris binder with sheaf carrier was purchased and this served the three of four farms cutting the grain for many years

But to get back to the haying…. A new steel horse rake was bought about the year 1875. It also was a Cossitt rake and we were all very proud of it. However, five years later the hired man took old Tom, one of our team, to the field to do some raking after supper. Finishing this he drove the horse to a windrow of hay and left him, while he went on to cock up the raked hay. Tom (the horse) was not used to being in the field without his team mate and decided to leave for home. He took a straight course, the wheel went over a stone pile, and the teeth dropped down making such a clatter that it scared Tom and started him running. We children were outside the fence of the lawn rolling on the slope at the side of the road when we heard Tom coming. The wheel struck the gate post as he came on the road, and the axle broke. Fortunately we knew enough to get inside the fence as he crossed the road and passed right over the place where we had been playing. Striking the rake against a telephone pole, he left the remains of the rake there and went on to the stable.

Later, the 14 acre field back of the woods had yielded a great crop of hay. Father had it all ready to stack and secured a couple of extra men and team. All that day I had been on the horse rake following the wagons to clean up the rakings. At four o’clock Father said “Walt, you hitch the horse on the spring wagon, go to the house and bring out our supper. Your mother will have it ready.” Driving across the woodlot and into the meadow I soon reached the house where mother gave me a couple of market baskets all covered with papers and a table cloth, and I drove carefully back to the field.

I will ever forget that supper. The men came in, sat round on the ground, the cloth was spread and the basket unloaded – warmed up potatoes, smoked ham, just fried and tender, eggs, fresh buns and in the end of the other basket a large dinner plate of pancakes, each one the size of the plate and covered with butter, then spread with soft maple sugar, to make a pile at least six inches high. Father cut into them as you would a layer cake, each serving the width of a piece of pie and half the depth of the pile! Again they came back for more until the plate was clean Then we finished with a pot of tea and a jug of coffee. It was pretty hard for the men to move very swiftly after such a supper. I think I had two helpings of the pancakes. But by dark the three stacks of hay were finished, the poles were placed on them and we were ready for home. Is it any wonder that the memory of that day and that supper has been with me all these years?

**Cutting grain on the Johnston Farm on the Lyn Road c1930**

**John Johnston standing next to his team of horses c1930**

**John Johnston getting ready to cut, next to the main CNR line c1930**

**A field of cut and stacked grain on the Johnston Farm just north of the CNR tracks and east of the Lyn Road shown in this photo c1930**

Clarence McCrady Sugar Shack on Harris Farm WB1

March 26 2017

Sugar Making

John Stories by Walter Billings Agriculture, Elizabethtown Township, Leeds and Grenville Walter Billings, Maple Syrup 1

A Story of Sugar-Making

By Walter K. Billings

Clarence McCrady’s Sugar Shack on the Harris Farm

One spring, when I was about fourteen, we had several white frosts. The snow in the sugar-bush was still early two feet deep, but it was nearly time to get out the tin sap buckets, put on a couple of kettles of water, build a good fire in the kitchen stove, and give these buckets a through cleaning. The spiles also came in for a good scalding before we could tap the bush.

Early next morning it looked the right time to head for the woods, so with our load we started. There had been a track broken in from the road and the team jogged along until we came to the maple grove. Then with a hatchet, a bit and bit stock, I struck out over the frozen snow, picked out the spot to bore the hole, and proceeded to tap the tree. The driving in the spile to the proper depth, I went on to the next tree while my sister Lou brought the bucket and hung it in place.

Nearly all forenoon we could walk on the crust, but by eleven o’clock the snow began to get soft and your feet would break through, sometimes causing you to fall. With the great depth of snow it began to mean hard work, but we stuck to it and by noon had nearly two hundred and fifty trees tapped.

We already had a sugar shanty, and going to it we cleared the snow from around the front door and got the door open. The wood for the fireplace had been piled ready, and we started for home. Having plunged through the wet snow until we were wet to our hips, we had to hunt out dry clothes and put them on before we had dinner.

As the next day was cold and stormy there was no use of our going to the bush. However, the second day proved a real sap day, and before night we found every bucket filled. Boiling the sap seemed a slow process, but by night we had a foaming pan of thin syrup, and, as Father had come down prepared to boil all night and had the fur robes all arranged in the bunk beside the arch, I decided to stay with him. So after seeing there was lots of wood inside, I curled up in the robes and went to sleep.

About two o’clock father woke me saying he had forgotten to fill the lantern, and I would have to go home and get some coal-oil. This seemed a long trip, so I said I would go across the hill to the Brown farm on the chance of finding an oil can in their shed. Emerging from the bush I walked over the hill and down to the shed door, where I knew they usually had a supply of lanterns, as they often had to go to the cattle barns during the night. Entering the woodshed I held my Lantern up and sure enough on a long girder hung a dozen lanterns. I went over to them and picked one up. There was no oil in it; the next one was the same. The third one had lots of oil in it, but the chimney was broken. Comparing the lanterns, I saw the chimney on my lantern would work on the other, so going outside, I changed the chimneys, lit the third lantern and returned to the sugar bush in a very short time. We were able to take care of our syrup and were home before daylight.

The first attempts at boiling sap are quite vivid in my memory. Three big kettles at the farm that were used for heating water at butchering time were cleaned and taken to the bush. At the spot there was a ledge of rock about four feet hgh, against which the kettles were placed. A green pole with supports at each end was placed over the kettles and chains fastened to them and around the pole; then it was raised until there was room to build a good fire underneath. With the pole securely braced we were ready for the sap. It was slow work as the sap would boil over when too much fire was put on, and the smoke and ashes would settle on the top of the kettles. The only way we had to stop it boiling over was to plunge a chunk of fat pork fastened to the end of a long stick into the foaming sap. I did not understand the virtue of this, but I remember having to stand before the fire and to watch those kettles. A year of two later an arch was built, and a nice new tin sap-pan was bought, also a couple of hundred tin sap buckets.

The first buckets we used were made of wood, similar to wooden pails that later were sold from the stores. Before farmers used wooden buckets they made sap buckets by hand. Basswood logs about fourteen inches across were split in two, an axe was used to hew a hollow in the centre of each log. This was cut in spaces of about two feet each, an adze was used to smooth the hollow, the saw cut them in the right lengths, the round side of each trough was flattened so that it would not tip over, and they were ready for the sap.

Before the metal spile was used, pieces of cedar about ten inches long were split to about an inch and a quarter, a channel was cut in the piece and at the other end a hole was bored lengthwise in to the channel gouged out, a hot piece of heavy wire shoved through the hole to clear out the shaving and this end then shaped to fit in the hole bored in the tree. When later metal spiles were obtained and the wooden buckets used, my father made a loop of wire near the top of the bucket and then could hang the wire on the hook of the metal spile. Our wooden buckets had at one time been painted red on the outside, with the name “A.Dunham” printed on each one. I suppose these buckets had at one time been owned by this man.

One incident I well remember. Our old friend, Vanamber Brown, had a bush just over the line fence between our two wood-lots. He had built up an arch of dry stones and banked it with earth. We were first that night to get our pan off, and we placed the syrup in a large milk can, for transportation to the house. We had hurried over to help Vanamber, but we were too late. He had noticed that his syrup was ready to come off, and had placed a couple of poles about seven feet long, one end on the side of the arch and the other on a log inside the shanty. He then attempted to pull the pan over on the poles, and had got along so far all right. However, unfortunately the pole near the front of the pan was lower that the other. He turned to get his can ready, and the syrup started running to the front of the pan, with the result that the weight of the syrup upended the pan and the whole day and a half’s boiling ran out on the ground. He managed to save about a gallon that still remained in the end of the pan, but the rest was gone.

The memory of a dinner in the bush at Easter when Mother would send down warmed up potatoes, boiled ham, eggs, doughnuts, fresh syrup coffee and a mince pie, still remains in my thoughts along with the fun and frolics of our guests, who, gathered for a sugar-off, were all eager to help Dad with the fire. I can see them yet, piling armfuls of dried limbs all around him till you could just see his head, but he enjoyed it all and had a warm welcome for the whole crowd.

Then we made jack-wax on the pans of snow, packed solid so that the hot syrup would not go through. Forks were passed around, or small cedar sticks dipped in the syrup as it hardened in the snow, and eyes glistened as the sweet sticky jack-wax was drawn in a ribbon form and then rolled again on the forks to taste and taste again. These were great days – Often in later years these guests would write to remind us of the big dinner and the sugaring off in the maple bush on our farm.