INDUSTRIAL REVIEW 201 



was either a platform with a grooved bottom or a 

 heavy spiked roller which was drawn over the 

 threshing floor by oxen. The Greeks likewise 

 used the sledge and it is even yet doing service in 

 some countries. A crude thresher now used in 

 Italy appears to be a descendant of the sledge. 

 It is a tapering roller fastened to an upright pole 

 located at the center of the threshing floor and 

 pulled around at the outer end by oxen. Both of 

 these methods have been used in the United 

 States. 



Horses were used in early times to tramp out 

 the grain, and sledges were found as late as 1830. 

 The flail, which was in common use as late as 1860, 

 probably grew out of the early method of beating 

 with sticks. It consisted of two shaped sticks 

 fastened together at one end with stout thongs. One 

 stick was the handle, the other the beater. In 1 73 2 

 a Scotchman worked out what was then considered 

 a wonderful invention. He united a large num- 

 ber of flails which were driven by water power. 

 All the early machines following this were produced 

 by the Scotch, and they really furnish the principles 

 of the modern thresher. 



The first threshing machines merely shelled out 

 the grain. Improvements which involved years of 

 experimental study were gradually added. Fully 

 five to ten per cent of the grain was lost in these 

 hand methods of threshing and the first machines 



