Modern American Harvesting in the Great Western Wheat Fields. Combine Harvester, Cutting, Threshing, and Sacking, Walla Walla, Washington; Evolution of the Sickle and Flail. 33 Horse Harvester at Walla Walla, Washington

UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD PUBLISHERS

Modern American Harvesting in the Great Western Wheat Fields. Combine Harvester, Cutting, Threshing, and Sacking, Walla Walla, Washington; Evolution of the Sickle and Flail. 33 Horse Harvester at Walla Walla, Washington

Walla Walla is situated between the Snake and Columbia Rivers in eastern Washington State. The text on the verso of "Evolution of the Sickle and Flail" emphasizes the limitless possibilities of farming on a "grand, western scale" and compares the ease of farming in the American West with the hardships of the original colonists who "laboriously chopped down forests, pulled out stumps, and painfully cultivated their little patches of grain." The text also explains that the United States accounted for 26 percent of the world's wheat production in 1901 and credits that achievement to the mechanization of agriculture: "A 'combined harvester' like this here...includes in one machine a header, thresher, separator, fanning-mill, and sacker; it will cut from 60 to 125 acres and thresh from 1700 to 3000 bushels in a day. Sometimes a traction engine is used in place of horse-power."

Albumen print

Princeton Collections of Western Americana, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Purchase, J. Monroe Thorington Fund.