This 1856 Cox and Roberts threshing machine was powered by a horse treadmill in the 1860s. Threshing with these machines was hard, dirty work, but the whole crop could be threshed and cleaned in a matter of days. It was certainly better than beating the grain from the straw with flails for half the winter. At the Kelley Farm, this treadmill- powered threshing machine still threshes wheat and oats.

Molasses was an important source of sweetening on the prairie. In the fall, sorghum is pressed with a horse-powered sorghum mill. Then the juice is boiled down to make molasses.