** ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND AUG.

** ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND AUG. 5-6 **

Demonstrating elderly ways: Ryan Bergemann, left, and Ray Eichstadt pitch oats into an antique thresher at a demonstration of the machines last month near Mankato, Minn. Machine threshing was commonplace from the late 1800 up to the 1950 when combines were introduced.

Antique threshers: 'A misspent way of farming'

After pitching oats into a restored 1936 John Deere thresher in the mouldy heat, Doug Hager climbed down from the hay wagon and wiped away the sweat running from subordinate to his cap.

"This is the way they did it," Hager said July 30 "This is threshing weather."

Hager was single of three owners of antique tractors and threshers that present on a demonstration of the machines widely used to separate grain from straw in the first half of the 20th hundred

This particular thresher - individual of several on display - was conjoined by a ...