Chương 56: Wheat Harvest Part 2

My family had two modern combines that we used for both wheat and corn. They used different headers, and we had to change out some of the internal stuff, but everything was contained inside the machine. The wheat or corn stalks were cut at the front of the machine, and then it was taken inside the machine on a belt that fed it to a big threshing drum with teeth on it that separated either the corn kernels or the wheat seeds from the plant itself.

After being threshed there were sieves that allowed the heavier seed to fall through, while the lighter chaff would be blown to the back of the machine into rows to be baled. The seed was then put on an elevator where it was carried up to a grain bin on the top of the machine. When the grain bin was full, an auger on a chute on the side of the bin would load the trucks, or more likely, the large grain hopper that we pulled with a tractor to take to the trucks, so the combine didn't have to stop.

At home, we were actually more likely to green chop our corn than combine it. We didn't have any green chopper machines of our own. We used custom guys to do that. Green choppers cost close to three quarters of a million dollars, and you weren't making your money back on that chopping less than a thousand acres of corn per year. This machine had most of the same components our combine had, but it certainly didn't look much like ours. It was pulled by a team of twenty horses.

This made a side reaper header a necessity so that the horses didn't trample the wheat as they pulled the machine. The header for the machine in front of me was on the right-hand side. For this first pass, they started on the left hand side of my wheat field so that the twenty-foot-wide header was on the inside.

As they started moving forward, a chain-driven driveshaft went to a gearbox that caused the reaper blades to begin a scissoring motion, and the grain rakes to pull the cut wheat onto a canvas conveyor belt that fed back into the threshing machine. The threshing machine had two metal tumblers that moved at incredible speed thanks to another gear system that spun them much faster than the rest of the components on the combine.

Below the tumblers was a sieve that allowed the grain to fall through onto another conveyor belt that ran to a platform on the back of the machine where a team of four men ran the bagging system. On our modern combines, the grain would have been lifted to the bin on top of the combine before being offloaded all at once. Here, it was bagged directly as it moved to the end of the conveyor belt. There wasn't a safety screen on the machine.

I took a quick glance and saw that none of the eight men who crewed the thresher appeared to be missing fingers or limbs. This crew was either really good or new. At a wave from Wizard Johnstone and a shout from the combine man in the driver's seat, the whole contraption, horses and machine alike, moved forward. For forty whole feet they moved at what I thought was a pretty decent pace for something so large.

Then, I heard a shout from the men on the back platform and one man blew a loud whistle that got the attention of the driver, who stopped the combine. Robert and I looked at each other, then walked over to where the crew was talking animatedly with each other. Robert addressed the man who had been in the driver's seat.

"What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?" The driver, an average-height man for this world, was wearing brown linen overalls, work boots, and a long-sleeved off-white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up. From his accent, and speech mannerisms, I assumed he was the owner of the combine.

"Well, sir," he said.

"My men are telling me that there is simply too much grain for them to keep up with at my normal pace." Johnstone frowned, then asked, "Well then, can you not simply slow down then?" I laughed. The combine man, who, a quick ID, said was named Sean Ashton, frowned and looked at me.

"I was under the impression you were new here, but you understand how a combine works? Have you seen one in action before? Not many of them in the home isles, too many people need work as it is." I walked up and shook his hand to formally introduce myself first, "Yes, sir. John Jacobsen by the way. I saw one in action a time or two in the past. Not from the home isles, either. Our problem is that if you slow down too much your blades won't cut the stalks of wheat well enough."

a time or two, He nodded and returned my handshake.

"Good to meet you. Yes, you are correct. I can slow down some, maybe drop my speed by a quarter, but my men can't bag and sew fast enough even then. If I drop any slower the blades are liable to bind up. It's a real pain in the arse. I'll need some extra hands." This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. I looked back to Emily and Colin, who were still standing where we had been observing, and waved them over.

"Emily, Colin, we're gonna need your help. Our wheat is just too impressive for this fine machine to handle." I heard Johnstone and Ashton give short laughs at my words, but I turned back to Mr Ashton and asked how he'd like us to help.

"Well, sir," he said, looking at the three of us.

"You look like a big strong man. Can you handle taking the full bags off the back of the machine and setting them on the ground for the guild team to pick up? And ma'am, will you handle sewing duties? That'll let my extra two men both help with bagging and making sure we keep things swapped out quickly so we don't lose too much seed." He looked at Colin for a moment before asking, "Son, can you help change bags as well? That'll free up one of my men to help move the chaff onto the off-belt.

There's a lot more of that as well." He looked at me again and said, "I assume you took the Crop Loss skill? That'll help too. System tomfoolery and all that." I laughed and agreed. I also had to ask what his actual class was.

"Sir, are you the owner of this machine? And would you mind telling me what your primary class is?" My question made his face light up in a smile; this was clearly a subject he liked talking about.

"Well now, I am a Machinist, my subclass is Machine Operator. I studied at the Royal Academy itself before coming to the territories. I did well enough that my loan was backed by the crown itself!"

"That is impressive," I told him.

"And I assume your class helps with wear and tear on this machine?"

"Indeed it does," he beamed back at me.

"My class skills are almost entirely tied to keeping this reaper-thresher from breaking down. I'd prefer to be on top of it, but the class skills require me to be in the driver's seat for some odd reason. A Drover, or some other animal related class would make more sense to me, but I'm sure the System has its reasons." Once we were done talking, the three of us joined the crew and we got started. Wizard Johnstone cleared out before there could be any question of his joining the combine crew.

He supervised the loading of the bags of wheat onto the wagons. When 1 p. m. rolled around, we took a lunch break that wasn't the hot lunch we'd anticipated since Emily was on the machine instead of preparing lunch. We were only halfway done with the twenty-acre field at that point. Our modern combine at home could do twenty acres in an hour. The almanac said that by hand, an acre of wheat took up to sixty man hours. Our job ended up taking up ten hours, and when we were done just before 10 p. m.

, we had 195 bags of wheat. Everyone, regardless of level, was absolutely exhausted when I put that last bag of seed on the ground. Looking out at the field, I was impressed with how much straw we had. A chance comment from Mr Ashton informed me I could get both my hay and my straw baled up into small bales from a crew in town who specialized in it. A quick search on the quest tab showed that there was a team that had an opening for me at the end of the week. I hadn't looked at my quest tab nearly enough.

I hadn't even realized that I didn't have specialty tasks turned on. All the quests I had up were for tasks that were either paid when I was paid, or that didn't require me to spend my farm XP. The four-person baling crew charged 5 silver per bale. That seemed steep, until I found out the bales weighed 300 pounds on average. The Guild Store paid 7 silver per bale hauled off. I would probably keep a majority of my straw, but I hired the crew for the following week.

195 bags were a lot of wheat, but we certainly didn't sell 195 bags. Most farmers would need to keep up to a quarter of their harvest for the next year, but my planter meant I only needed two to three bushels per acre. We initially decided to keep eighty bags, but after some pleas from Johnstone, we kept 30 so he only needed to bring one more wagon back out. Our pigs and birds needed some grain over the winter, and I was going to buy a grain silo that could hold 300 bushels, so it wasn't too big of a deal.

Johnstone paid me my 600 gold and left with his last wagon when it was filled up around 6 p. m. with the promise the final wagon would be there the next day. We paid the combine operator his 50 gold as soon as Johnstone paid us. He and his crew had appointments with a couple of other late-planting places, so they'd already planned on camping out. Colin and I helped them set up their tents and provided hay and water for their horses before everyone ate a very late dinner of cold sliced beef sandwiches.

The first mechanical contrivances to harvest wheat were tested during the reign of our current emperor's father, Emperor Niall. Niall was a great believer in the importance of technological progress to help further humanity's goal of one day conquering the world. Thanks to Emperor Niall's magnificent wisdom, a new wing of the Royal Research Academy was founded. More than two dozen men, who had already been working on their own machines, were brought to the academy. Emperor Niall funded their research.

The most successful project to date was the invention of the Niall combine. The Niall combine, as its name suggests, combined a reaper and a thresher into a single machine, greatly cutting down on the number of man-hours needed to harvest a field of wheat. There may be those of you who are wondering why magic is not used to any significant effect in the field or harvesting. There are several factors, chief among them that most Wizards chose paths that lend their talents in other ways.

Let us not forget that too much mechanization, or too widespread a use of magic, could displace the large percentage of the male population who relies on harvest labor to feed their families. Emperor Niall and now Emperor Harold II, long may he reign, have masterfully threaded the needle of progress without disruption. At the Royal Research Academy, we will continue to strive to maintain that balance.

Excerpt from The Royal Research Conclave Grand Speech for the centennial celebration of Harold II's jubilee by Academy Grandmaster Johnstone.