We rarely get to hear the views of women on agricultural tasks, including work at the threshing mill. The arrival of the travelling mill on farms was a big occasion. It required a large number of hands coming from neighbouring farms and other ones. All these additional hands needed to be fed. This was an important task to be completed by the women. Some women also worked at the mill, undertaking a range of tasks.
An article in the Aberdeen press and journal of 1 November 1935 by a woman named “Elizabeth” provides an insightful account of the travelling mill in the north-east. I’ll let her provide her reflections in her account:
“Women enjoy the visits of the threshing machine, by Elizabeth.
This morning the steam threshing mill entered our district just as it has entered twice a year for as long as I can remember. It always comes round in October or November, and then again in February when it threshes the last of the season’s corn. Taking Scotland as a whole the portable mill is certainly becoming less and less popular with the passing of years. Farmer after farmer has been finding it more convenient to have his own indoor threshing outfit, but there are still a great many framers-more particularly farmers of the smaller type-who just carry on in the old way without any thoughts of change.
My own opinion is that if the women-folk on the farm were asked to give their opinion on the two ways of threshing they would give their vote for the other system. The women in my vicinity enjoy the visit of the travelling mill, for they know that of the weather is good it can be quite an exciting time. All the neighbours will be there to help, and provided they are in sufficient numbers the work will not be strenuous.
A social occasion
Yes, the coming of the threshing mill with all its paraphernalia is an event in the somewhat easy-going routine of the farm. If a farmer or croft happens to be particularly isolated this is one of the few opportunities which the women folk have of meeting their male neighbours in the mass. The women themselves occasionally meet on the institute nights, and the men have gatherings of their own, but it is only at concerts, dances, weddings, and at such events as the corn threshing that both sexes forgather in comparatively big numbers. In my part of the country there is usually about a score of people at an ordinary threshing, and some times the half of these will be women.
It is the exception to find anyone working for cash payment: it is nearly always a case of giving work in exchange for work. All the neighbours combine in the interests of one of their number, and all derive equal benefit in return. In the crofting districts this community spirit has deep roots in the past and is still very strong. In varying degrees it is seen in the cutting of the peats, in the sheep-dipping, and in the harvesting, but in nothing is it so apparent as in this bi-annual work of corn-threshing. Indeed that is one of the reasons why many of us like to see the old travelling mill continue on its rounds.
An ideal day
Good weather is of great importance for any kind of outdoor work, but for the corn threshing it is really the first thing to be considered. To get rain on newly threshed straw is to get the worst of luck. Even the discomfort for the workers is a secondary consideration.
An ideal day is one in which there is no rain to damage the crops and no wind to blow the straw out of control. On such a day, with a good sun shining overhead, the work can be very pleasant. Particularly is good weather needed for those whose job it is to stand on the top of the mill unfastening the sheaves for the “feeder”.
This work is nearly always done by two women who work in relays. The sheaves are pitchforked to the top of the mill where they are rapidly unfastened by the women’s nimble fingers, and passed on to the “feeder” who is always a skilled male worker.
Suited to women
Although women seem to be specially suited to the handling of the sheaves there are several things in connection with the threshing that they can do equally as well as men. It is true that only a very strong type of women can carry the sacks of corn into the barn, but there is not much else that the average woman cannot do if the threshing is being carried on under ordinary conditions. She is well suited to looking after the chaff department, and girls are usually chosen to share the work of clearing the straw from the “mouth” of the mill. And while the stack-building is always a man’s job, he likes to have a few young persons of both sexes to assist him.
But the women of the house at which the corn is being threshed have the busiest time of all, for in their hands lies the responsibility for the feeding of the whole company. Sometimes a lunch has to be prepared, but always there is a tea meal, and when twenty or thirty people have to be fed the preparation alone takes some time. Each different district has its own way of arranging things, and in some places it is customary for the workers to be called into the kitchen in relays until everyone has been served, while in other places no one is fed until the work is finished-or until there is a break-and then the whole company sits down together.
Sociability
The latter way lends more of a social atmosphere to the occasion, but it also means more work for the housewife and her assistants, for not every kitchen table can hold twenty at a time. Two tables are usually placed together, and more than the everyday amount of dishes and cutlery has to be looked for. If a lunch has to be prepared a really big pot of soup, followed by meat and potatoes and a cold sweet, needs the minimum of cooking and can be partly made on the preceding day.”
