SSIl 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



tion above the holes or meslies. The holes in a shaker 

 may he small, yet the straws dropped through are many 

 inches in length. In riddling, all those straws must 

 be prevented passing through holes large enough for 

 the corn; and this can be done only by causing them 

 to travel across the screen without jumping and falling 

 upon it as they do in a shaker. Revolving riddles, 

 desirable as their even i-egular motion may be, cannot 

 answer, unless, by means unseen at present, they are 

 made to avoid the rolling and tumbling of the pulse 

 upon the meshes or slat apertures; and contrivances 

 for drawing or pushing the stuff across fixture riddles 

 are also completely objectionable, from their heaping 

 and gathering of the corn within lumps of the cavings, 

 instead of thinning all out as much as possible, in order 

 to facilitate the escape of grains and chaff. We cannot 

 imagine anything for the purpose better than the hori- 

 zontal jogging motion given to our present riddles, the 

 riddle itself being slightly sloped so as to give evei-y 

 particle of stuff upon it a tendency to travel in one 

 direction over its surface. If all the bits of straw, &c., 

 were of one length, and all traversed the riddle in the 

 same posture, lying either lengthwise or crosswise, it 

 would be easy to shape slats or other divisions of the 

 riddle into apertures that would be bridged and slipped 

 over by ihe straws while admitting the corn and chaff 

 to pass through. But the difficulty is, that the stuff 

 lies in all directions, and is of innumerable sizes. 

 The aim must therefore be to form the apertures of a 

 shape — say round, square, or but slightly varying from 

 these figures — so as to present equal impediments to 

 the entrance of the straws or ears in every direction. 

 A wire screen with square or hexagonal meshes, or 

 sheet metal perforated, might answer the purpose very 

 well for a short time — that is until it became clogged 

 with caught and doubled straws — provided that no 

 straws dipped and poked their ends beneath the wires, 

 and so became gradually jogged underneath (that is, 

 through) the riddle, instead of being conveyed over the 

 top. Hence it is indispensable that sloping walls or 

 partitions should be given to the apertures, at any rate 

 on that side opposite to and meeting with the advance of 

 the stuff, in order to hinder the passage of straws in a 

 downward direction, and by their inclined surface raise 

 up any dipping-ends on to the riddle again. This is a 

 most important point in the riddling apparatus ; and 

 we advise purchasers of combined thrashing machines 

 to be very particular in their choice ; for when the rid- 

 dles have any tendency to clog and block up, and con- 

 tinual attention is needful in clearing them, not only 

 time is lost in frequent stoppages, but waste of corn is 

 inevitable. Now, for passing off the straws endwise 

 without any poking through, and at the same time for 

 presenting apertures that no mass of chaff and corn 

 can by any possibility choke up, we have the slat rid- 

 dle, resembling a Venetian or louvre shutter, with the 

 slats inclined say at 45 degrees. This form was origin- 

 ally intended also for having a blast underneath, which 

 blowing up through the spaces, and meeting the corn 

 and chaff, should separate the latter, as well as tend to 

 lift and throw off the pulse above. But we do not ap- 

 prove of this principle, preferring (as we shall hereafter 

 show) to separate the pulse by simple straining or 

 sifting, and reserve the whole force of the blast for 

 chaffing in a different manner. To prevent straws 

 from dropping through transversely, wires were intro- 

 duced, passing through holes pierced in the slats. To 

 gain more aperture space, and obtain the raising ac- 

 tion of the inclined slats on the opposite side of the 

 spaces, angle-bars, with their edge uppermost, have 

 been adopted ; and another application of the princi- 

 ple of a sloping passage, or aperture, is seen in the rid- 

 dle, made by boring round holes in a slab of hard wood, 

 the holes slanting toward the blast, and widening down- 



wards, so as not to choke. But, seeing that corn may 

 possibly ride over this latter riddle upon the thick, 

 though tortuous, interstices or partitions, although no 

 pulse can penetrate thi-ough, and that straws may cer- 

 tainly drop between the angle-bars 'of the other riddle, 

 or lodge across the wires between the slats of that first 

 menti )ned, our readers will be willing to i-eceive our 

 special approbation of a slat-riddle constructed as fol- 

 lows : The slats are to be of hard wood, half-inch stuff, 

 before planed up, and say one and three-quarters inches 

 deep j make them into a i-iddle, by letting their ends 

 into a rectangular deal frame as wide as the machine 

 will allow, and of sufficient length (to be noticed pre- 

 sently) ; the slats lying square across the frame, and 

 inclined at an angle of about 45 degress ; the distance 

 apart, measuring from middle to middle of the 

 (parallel) slats, is to be one and a-half inches at the 

 inner end of tlie riddle, and gradually less till it is one 

 and a-quarter inches at the outer end. Thus far we have 

 simply a slat-riddle, made slightly to vary in the size 

 of aperture, according to the bulk of stuff upon it 

 at different parts, this being of course much le^s to- 

 ward the outer end, when most of the corn and chaff has 

 been parted with, than it is when first entering ujion the 

 riddle. But now fix wires (rather fine), lengthwise of 

 the riddle, upon the top of the slats, crossing them at 

 right- angles, fastening each wire to every slat by small 

 wire staples ; the wires to be one and a-quarter inches 

 apart. This improved form of riddle, contrived by a 

 mechanically-gifted farmer in Cambridgeshire, and 

 since adopted by some great manufacturers (in one 

 case strips of cane being substitiited for the rusting 

 wires and their tiresome staples) works to perfec- 

 tion, or comes very closely to if, whether for wheat, 

 barley, oats, or peas. It is just possible that im- 

 provement may yet be made in avoiding still fur- 

 ther the wear, or liability to damage, of a riddle 

 rather tedious and expensive to make, and rendering 

 it utterly impossible for short ears to drop through 

 or catch under the wires at the cornei's. At 

 present there are a few refractory bits that will make 

 their way through, and require to be arrested by the 

 smaller chaffing riddle to which the corn, &c., is next 

 conveyed. And we may say here, that no riddle must 

 ever be expected to be absolutely perfect in its action, 

 and that therefore we ought not to trust to a single 

 riddle, but employ a second (of smaller dimensions and 

 diminished apertures) to rectify the occasional omissions 

 of the first, besides the extra facility we may thus get 

 for chaffing. We have alluded to the length of the 

 riddle. It is a common error to have them much 

 too short, and adapted pretty well perhaps to a steady 

 and regular supply of stuff. But the supply is often 

 very irregular, partly owing to sudden thrusting in of 

 whole sheaves at once by the man feeding, partly to 

 the gathering together of lumps of stuff (especially 

 when damp) either upon the riddle or on the way to 

 it ; and we ought to provide for such extreme and ex- 

 travagant amounts of stuff at any instant, if we would 

 prevent waste and produce a pure sample. The farmer 

 above-named has his riddle 4^ feet long, and would 

 like to stretch it another foot at least, to make it equal 

 to every emergency. His chaffing riddle, which stops 

 the escaped odd pieces of pulse, is about 2 feet in length, 

 made with slats at similar intervals to the other, only 

 the wires are % inch instead of IJ apart. Instead of 

 crowding the stuff upon a restricted surface, let the 

 principle be to spread and open it out as much as pos- 

 sible, by causing it to pass quickly over the riddle, and 

 hence a considerable length is necessary in order to give 

 it due time for letting fall the chaff and corn. Another 

 point to be borne in mind is, that corn may ride upon 

 or within a knot or braid of doubled or intertwining 

 straws, and so be carried over with the cavings ; there- 



