Staff Writer
MAPLETON – Terry Gregg has found an interesting way to harvest oats.
The owner of Maple Meadow Farms in Mapleton has been cutting and threshing oats by having four horses pull a combine.
Photo courtesy of Paul Cyr
TERRY GREGG, owner of Maple Meadow Farms in Mapleton, spent time recently cutting and threshing oats by having four horses pull a combine. Gregg learned how to hook multiple horses together from his Amish friends in Pennsylvania. The combine he uses is a 1949 12A John Deere.
“It’s a 1949 12A John Deere combine that I got last summer,” said Gregg. “A combine cuts the oats and threshes them. Before the combine was invented, farmers used a reaper, which would cut the oats, and drop them off into the field into bunches. The farmers would then stand them up, haul them into the barn, and put them into a threshing machine.
“The combine does what both the reaper and threshing machine had done,” he said, noting that the combine weighs 2,900 pounds. “You can do everything in the field.”
Gregg, who raises about 10 acres of oats each year, said he learned of using the horses to pull the combine from his Amish friends in Pennsylvania.
“They taught me how to hook four horses together,” he said. “You can only steer the middle two horses, and the middle two are actually steering the outside horses.
“Where my friends are in Lancaster County, they don’t use the horses and combine anymore because they’re raising very little grain because land has gotten so expensive,” said Gregg. “They don’t have enough land to grow oats to meet the needs of their animals, so they buy their grain.”
The ability to hook multiple horses together makes the harvesting process faster.
“By using the horses, you can haul more of a load and you don’t have to rest the horses as often,” said Gregg. “Years ago, farmers would plow with two horses and the Amish people used six. You’d have to rest the two horses a lot, but with six, they don’t get as tired.”
Gregg said the technique is done on his farm more for fun.
“We legitimately use our horses in the woods … usually one or two at a time,” he said. “When we do the stuff in the fields, it’s more or less playing … although my son, Matt, and I baled most of our hay this year with horses and we got way more than we’ve ever gotten before. We baled a little over 6,000 bales … half of it or better was with horses.”
Motorists have taken notice of Gregg’s group of horses hauling the farm machinery.
“Quite often, if I’m near the road, there’ll be cars stopped or people who turn around and come back,” he said. “You don’t see a group of horses working much in Aroostook County.”
Gregg said he cut half of his 10 acres of oats using the horse-combine method.
“The combine needed some tinkering and it sat for a long while,” he said, “so I think next year – now that I got that combine straightened out – I intend to do it all with the horses.”
