The busiest time of the year comes with the harvest, which usually begins about the middle of August. The farmers now go to work with a vim. In many instances the women and the girls join the men and the boys in the fields. Nearly every man has his own harvesting machinery and the girls sometimes drive the binders that cut the grain. At the same time thousands of labourers are brought in from the United States, eastern Canada, and even from England. They are transported at reduced rates by the railroads and are sure of work at good wages until the grain has been loaded upon the cars that take it to the head of the Great Lakes. Harvesting on the larger farms goes on from daybreak to dark, and sometimes even by twilight and moonlight. After the wheat reaches a certain point in ripening, it must be cut without delay. If it becomes wet it will deteriorate, and if left too long it will hull during the harvesting, or an untimely frost may ruin it. I have visited one farm near Dundurn where sixteen hundred acres of grain all became ripe overnight. The next morning the owner started a dozen harvesters at work, keeping the machines going until every stalk was cut. Horses were put on in relays every four hours and there was no stopping to rest at the end of the field. In Alberta there is a farm five times as large, where sixty binders, each pulled by a four-horse team, are used to cut the crop. Riding through the country in the fall, one is seldom away from the sound of the threshing machine. Only a few farmers own these machines, most of the threshing being done by contractors and their crews who go from farm to farm. Imagine yourself with me at threshing time, and let us see how the work is done. The wheatfield we choose contains one thousand acres and it is spotted with shocks, or stooks, as they are called here. Each stook consists of a number of sheaves stood upon end on the ground with others so arranged on top that it will shed rain. A half dozen teams are moving over the field gathering up the stooks. As soon as a wagon is loaded it is driven to the thresher, into whose greedy mouth the sheaves are poured continuously from sunrise to sunset. At the same time grain is flowing out of the thresher into the wagons or motor trucks that carry it away.