Harvest Building

 

You can find the whole history of harvesting equipment at Farmtown Park, not only for harvesting grain, but also for making hay and straw.

Hay is dried grass, which farmers now put into bales to feed to the animals in winter. Before machines for making bales were invented, the farmers used to put the hay loose on to wagons and take it to the barn to be stored. They lifted the hay using a hessian sling and swung it into the hayloft. Once balers were introduced farmers could bale the hay in the field and because the hay in bales is compacted farmers can store more of it.

You can see all sorts of balers in the Harvest Building including a straw packer for making bales of straw. Straw is the stalk of the grain once the grain has been removed and is used for bedding for the animals.There are threshing machines . Each summer there are demonstrations using the equipment at the Hastings County Farm Show and Plowing Match.

Update on Thursday, September 6, 2012 at 10:25PM by Margaret Grotek

Roy Rogers from Loyalist Township, Ontario, demonstrates threshing oats with his circa 1870 ground hog threshing machine  built by the Desjardins Company of Saint-André-de-Kamouraska. He was at the Hastings County Farm Show and Plowing Match 2012. He is a member of the Quinte Antique Tractor Club, which based at Farmtown Park home of the Hastings County Museum of Agricultural Heritage.