The wheat industry boomed in parts of the South Island between the late 1870s and early 1900s. This watercolour of a wheat harvest in Canterbury is from the 1900s – towards the end of the wheat bonanza. In the foreground sheaves have been ‘stooked’ to dry in the late summer sun. In the middle of the paddock, men are loading the stooks onto a cart to be hauled to the stack. There is a completed stack in the background, and another is being built next to it. During this period, the wheat remained in the stack until a threshing machine arrived in the district, and the threshed grain was bagged.
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Private collection
Watercolour by I. Burt
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