In the early days, you could get onto the land much earlier with oxen and horses than you can with a tractor.Â
Here is a young man driving two steers pulling an eight-foot disc to prepare the land for seeding. It was a slow and dusty job. You could disc at approximately two miles per hour and you could complete approximately 10 acres a day if you were double discing.
After that came the 10-foot drill with four oxen to do the seeding. You could do approximately 25 acres a day. You must remember that you would have to stop to rest, feed and water your livestock throughout the day as well.
Seeding time was a very busy time for the pioneers and is still a very busy time for our farmers today.
Photos courtesy City of North Battleford Historic Archives
