This is in the Minot area Buffalo Pitts Plowing outfit turning
raw prairie sod which did not give up easily. We did have a load
with those 12 plows which was too many when it became dry and then
we took off three. The furrows were usually one mile long, that is
two miles to the round. Oh boy, what a day, I can hardly keep my
seat as I think back of the thrill it was to pull throttle on that
What a sight that was. I was told when I was back in Minot 1953 for
a reunion and served on the program. There were a handful of men
there to whom I spoke that remembered back to this day in 1905.
They said they could hear that engine talking early in the
quietness of the morning for 15 miles.
Lunch from a real harvest cook wagon at the Chris Busch Ranch
near Colton, Wash. It had everything to bring back memories for the
5,000 in attendance, or at least the older ones who had worked in
crews with the steam thresher. Only the swarms of flies that went
with horse and mule power were missing, though one exiowan
complained that he really missed the swarm of gnats that hovered
around the water jug bung where the soggy corn cob soured with age
and soaking.
