with the men who had just completed an eleven or twelve hour working day. The threshing was completed in the fields and not near the barns. The thresher was quite mod¬ ern for the early twentieth century. A steam thresher was used which burned straw. It had a swinging iron door. The stoker used an iron fork to fork in the straw. Every few days heavy clinkers had to be removed from the fire-box. The stokers had to be up in the morning by 4:00 A.M. in order to have enough steam pressure to operate the thresher by 6:00 A.M. 150 pounds pressure had to be maintained for proper operation. It took three years for the engineer (stoker) to qualify for his job. At the end of this time exams had to be written. The gas engines were still not in use but some of the men said that coal was used with straw in the province of . Sunday was set aside for maintenance for the machines, as every part was checked to ensure that no time would be lost during the week because of poorly maintained machinery. One story teller gave a description of the farm where he worked. "In Hartney, Manitoba, I worked for a man who had seven sons and seven binders. He hired ten other men to help with the stooking and driving teams of horses on his farm of 1800 acres of wheat. The yield per acre was probably 30 bushels. The owner was a very conscientious man who believed in a fair day's work and good food for his men. He used to go to town every day and purchase a case of apples or pears. He told us to eat plenty of fresh fruit and not to drink the water as he considered it to be poison. If the men arrived before the grain was ready to harvest, we would be given the job of summer fallowing. To summer fallow meant a man had to have some knowledge of how to control hors¬ es, as a span (eight abreast), were hooked to wide disks. No one wanted to get into trouble when these horses had to be backed away from the watering trough, or make an improper turn at the corner of a field. " "Most of the farmers maintained between 50 to 60 horses, although I worked on a 17,000 acre farm, owned by the Nobel Foundation, which was under the direction of the Clarey Bros . Here they had 28 binders and about 150 horses. They fed the horses unthreshed sheaves of grain, rather than hay. The unthreshed grain was stored in the barns during the threshing season. The harvest season was actually only four to six weeks but few of the men would return to the Island at this time as they wanted to take home as much money as possible so would look for jobs which would probably last until close to Christmas. Some of us worked picking potatoes, on the railway lines, or at road construction. Another odd job which some of the younger men enjoyed was 'bronco busting'. No one liked the job of picking stones in the grain fields. These were not the regular ones like we find on Prince Edward Island . They were granite. Were they ever heavy!" Social Life Social life was a small part of the lives of the men. On Saturday night the nearest movie houses had special shows. These usually included a dance afterwards. The residents of were very receptive to these migrant workers as they spent freely while in the towns. At the local district schools, concerts, box socials and dances were held. The dances included the lancers, fox trot and the waltz. Some of the migrants had their own musical instruments with them when they went West, so were always welcome in the entertainer's row. In a local poolroom, one of the Stanley men made money playing the mouth organ for entertainment on Saturday nights. After the harvest season ended everyone turned out for church on Sunday morning. No excuses were accepted for not attending as the homesteaders supplied a horse for each of their hired 67