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A class at the Manitoba Agricultural College (MAC) posing with a 30-horsepower Big Four tractor. One of the college’s engineering courses trained people in the operation of steam and gas engines. There was a great demand for trained operators at this time. The photo also demonstrates how large a tractor the Big Fours were. The rear wheels dwarf the students standing beside them and one of these students, the man on the ground at the rear of the wheel, is over six feet tall. If you recognize any of the men in this photo, the museum would like to get their names and any history you are able to provide.
Country Crossroads, Our History

Agriculture engineers in the early years

The Manitoba Agricultural College was the first of its kind in Western Canada 
and aimed to equip farmers with the latest knowledge

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The Manitoba Agricultural Museum holds in its collection the photo seen here, which is thought to show the students of an engineering course at the Manitoba Agricultural College. Manitoba’s rapid growth at the turn of the century prompted the provincial government to support agricultural research and education. The Manitoba Agricultural College (MAC) was established in
Canadian Bull tractor pulling a two-furrow, Powerlift “Enicar” made by J.I. Case Plow Works, Racine, Wis.
Country Crossroads, Our History

The three-wheel tractor craze

A move to smaller less expensive tractors fuelled interest in these designs

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The images of the 1916 Brandon Light Tractor Plowing Demonstration demonstrate a significant craze in tractor design which was sweeping North America at the time. By 1916 the day of the Prairie-style gas tractor was coming to an end. Designers and manufacturers realized they needed tractors which were suitable for smaller farms and for jobs
Goold Shapley & Muir (GS&M) is important as it was a very early Canadian manufacturer of tractors. GS&M was formed in 1892 from Goold and Company, a manufacturer of beekeeper supplies and refrigerators. The new company diversified and began to manufacture windmills, gasoline engines and other machinery. Manufacturing gas engines resulted in GS&M getting into the tractor business. In 1907, the company introduced the “Ideal” tractor line which consisted of two models the 18-35 and 25-50. GS&M went on to produce the “Ideal Junior” a 15-25 tractor. The Ideal Junior used a hopper-cooled two-cylinder opposed engine. GS&M tractors are rare today, however, they apparently were a decent tractor at the time.
Machinery

The Brandon Light Tractor Plowing Demonstration of 1916

This event, was the first up-close look many farmers had at a tractor

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While the Winnipeg Tractor Trials had come to an end in 1913, E.W. Hamilton, the editor of the Canadian Thresherman and Farmer magazine, remained interested in promoting tractors. More importantly, the farming public remained very interested in tractors with their promise of being able to perform more work at a lower cost than horses. Hamilton
Farmer Types on tablet computer with combine in the background
Comment, Opinion

Innovation must continue to drive equipment manufacturing

Smarter government policy that reduces administrative costs and lowers trade barriers can play an important role

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Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains says he wants to make innovation a core Canadian value because it’s “the path to growth, the path that leads to a stronger middle class and higher-quality jobs.” Canada’s agricultural equipment manufacturers have known this for years. In fact, innovation is at the heart of Canadian agriculture,
Winnipeg pioneered scientific tractor testing in the early part of the 20th century. Seen here is a Flour City tractor on a drawbar test.
Country Crossroads

When Manitoba set the standard for tractors

A forgotten Manitoba competition tested early tractors for prospective buyers


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Little known today, either in Manitoba or outside the province, the Winnipeg Light Agricultural Motor Contests were on the cutting edge of the new technology of the tractor. In fact, the tractor was so new in 1908 that the word tractor had not even been invented. The Winnipeg contests were the first effort to scientifically
Cereal Implements, first in self-propelled swathers
Our History

Cereal Implements, first in self-propelled swathers

Our History: August 1986

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Canadian Co-operative Implements Ltd. (CCIL) started in 1940 as a co-op to market equipment and later manufacture its own. In 1973, CCIL built a large plant in Winnipeg to manufacture combines, swathers, discers, cultivators, harrows and other equipment. The decision turned out to be a poor one for the company, and it struggled for several
More than 760 registered threshing team members and 139 threshing outfits are the new world record holders for the largest threshing event in history. Harvesting Hope at the annual threshing event in Austin was a fundraiser for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
Local news

Threshers break world record at Austin


Thousands of spectators at the Manitoba Agricultural Museum July 31 
witnessed threshing outfits from across Canada and the northern 
U.S. stage the world’s largest threshing bee

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Hundreds of volunteers donned overalls and heaved sheaves on Sunday to re-enact a Prairie harvest scene on the grandest scale the world has ever seen. More than 148 antique threshing outfits rattled, hissed and ‘chuff-chuff-chuffed,’ tended by 700 participants, in the Guinness World Record attempt at the Manitoba Agricultural Museum for the most threshers operating
Helmut Neufeld (l) and Garth Crooks.
Local news

VIDEO: Threshermen on the threshold of a Guinness World Record

From the Manitoba Agricultural Museum, Harvesting Hope: A World Record to Help the Hungry

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With the help of a wooden Nichols & Shepard thresher and a 1912 Rumely tractor, Helmut Neufeld, Garth Crooks and their team of threshermen get ready to lend their efforts to break the Guinness World Record for the “most threshing machines operating simultaneously.” In this video, get an up-close look at each machine as the
threshing in action in Austin, Manitoba
Local news

VIDEO: Harvesting hope and harnessing agricultural spirit

From the Manitoba Agricultural Museum, Harvesting Hope: A World Record to Help the Hungry

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What does it take to put on the world’s largest pioneer harvest? According to Elliot Sims, one of the co-chairs and organizers of Harvesting Hope: A World Record to Help the Hungry, start with tens of thousands of man-hours, over 800 volunteers, nearly 150 machines and you’re on the right track. The range of antique
Threshing outfit of Mr. Geo. Kent, Shoal Lake Man., consisting of 22-hp waterous double-cylinder traction engine with 35x50 McCloskey separator.
Country Crossroads

The George Kent outfit

A chance find in an old magazine shows a Manitoba threshing crew in action

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While researching the Winnipeg Tractor Trials we reviewed copies of the Canadian Threshermen and Farmer and in a 1904 edition, came across this image of the George Kent outfit, which consisted of a Waterous 22 horsepower steam engine and a 35×50 McCloskey separator. George Kent farmed somewhere around Shoal Lake. The photo contains a wealth

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