Small is Good

Some firms — particularly those in the Atlantic provinces — did not follow the trend established by large Ontario companies. They chose, instead, to focus on producing machines to meet the specific needs of their local markets. In the 1920s, the Hall Manufacturing Company of Summerside, P.E.I. was still building threshing machines with a capacity of less than Hall Manufacturing Company Ltd., Undershot Thresher 20-24, distributed only in the Maritimes. In fact, many of these firms continued to build small machines long after they had disappeared from the catalogues of Ontario manufacturers. In the 1930s, when the transition to combine harvesting was well on its way in other parts of Canada, La Cie Desjardins of Kamouraska, Quebec continued to offer a small manual-feed wooden threshing machine, using technology from the 1870s. By offering these machines, manufacturers filled an important niche market, in which price and field size would have made the purchase of a large machine or combine untenable.

Hall Manufacturing Company Ltd. 20-24 Undershot Thresher