The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests by Evans Sterling

Author:Evans, Sterling [Evans, Sterling]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-05-22T09:33:04+00:00

The Twine Line | 191

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[191], (3)

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Figure 16. Early twentieth-century John Deere twine binder. Photo taken by

author in Kenmare, North Dakota, July 1999.

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binders that were cumbersome and caused problems when livestock in-

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gested the wire with the discarded straw left over from threshing. Wire

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binders ceased production in 1883.

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Twine binders (figure 16) were readily accepted by farmers on the

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American and Canadian plains. One Canadian farmer-writer, for exam-

[191], (3)

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ple, argued that “of the factors which contributed most to the expansion

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of the western grain fields, none had more far-reaching influence than the

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invention of the mechanical knotter which permitted the use of twine.”

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He recalled that a man with a team of horses and a binder could do in

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a day what previously took six men to do.2 The McCormick Harvesting

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Machine Co. sold an average of 152,000 binders a year between 1897 and

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1902, and after it merged with other implement manufacturers in 1902

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to form International Harvester (ih), it averaged sales of 91,000 binders

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a year for the next decade.3 In the United States, binders were used across

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most of the northern and midwestern grain growing regions. In Canada,

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as historian Tony Ward has written, there was a “rapid adoption of the

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twine binder” as wheat production expanded across the prairie provinces.

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The first binders started trickling into Manitoba in 1881 and into Alberta

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one year later. Their drop in price from the original $260 (Cdn.) in the

BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 191 / / The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests / Sterling Evans 192 | Evans

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1890s to $155 (Cdn.) from 1900 to 1910 further popularized the imple-

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ment. But while “the early binders gave a good deal of trouble,” as Grant

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MacEwan acknowledged, “they were accepted at once and for nearly fifty

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years nobody considered an alternative.”4

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The Canadian government, however, imposed a tariff on U.S.-made

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farm implements. The duties followed technological advancements. They

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rose from 17.5 percent in the 1850s (primarily for early reapers used in

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Ontario before the wheat boom in the prairie provinces) to 25 percent

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in the 1870s (wire binders) to 37.5 percent by 1880s (twine binders and

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other implements). Cyrus McCormick was clearly annoyed at such poli-

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cies and petitioned the U.S. State Department to intercede on such mat-

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ters, although that proved unsuccessful. He also commissioned twenty-

[192], (4)

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five agents to Canada to help market his implements there. But they

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had a tough time convincing farmers that the more expensive U.S. im-

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plements were better than the Canadian-made counterparts (primarily

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Massey-Harris). One agent wrote to company headquarters that “Cana-

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dians are clannish and strongly prejudicial.” Frustrated, but unwilling

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to build manufacturing plants in Canada (in order to maintain central

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control in the United States), McCormick instructed agents to sell out

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their stock and to urge customers to buy the Canadian implements. Selling

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no more than one thousand binders in Canada in his lifetime, McCormick

[192], (4)

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was greatly undersold by Massey-Harris, Deering, and other competitors.

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Even his son Cyrus II (who ran ih) missed the mark when he thought the

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wheat boom in Manitoba would never last because it “was too dependent

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on one crop.”5

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Despite McCormick’s

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