204 



BRITISH HUSBANDRY. 



[Ch. XIV. 



BARLEY HUMMELLING. 



The process to wliich tliis more particularly alludes is in some 

 places called " fattering," and many machines have heen invented to 

 effect it. Some of these have been attached to the tiirasliing machine, 

 and are simultaneously driven by the same power; they act as scutchers, 

 with arms fixed to a vertical spindle enclosed within a cylinder, and the 

 corn being put in at the top of the cylinder, which is kept in rapid 

 motion, the awns are broken off by their impulse*. They do not, however, 

 answer the purpose so completely as could be wished ; for if the straw be 

 damp, or mixed with clover and grasses, it is apt to choke up the cxlinder, 

 by adhering to it as it turns round. We therefore annex a description of 

 one lately invented by Messrs. Grant, of Granton in Aberdeenshire, which 

 has been brought before the Highland Society, and will probably be found 

 to perform the work more perfectly than it has been liitherto done, as it is 

 certified to have given satisfaction to several persons by whom it has been 

 used ; and, being moveable, it can be put aside when other corn comes to 

 be thrashed. 



This machine, when viewed externally — as mfig. 1 — consists of a nearly square box, 

 thirty inches on the side at the base, twenty inches at the smaller end, and four feet in 

 length. In the interior of the l)Ox, the two lower angles are filled uj) with wood, so as to 

 form the half cf a conical surface ; while the two upper angles are left void, but their 

 surface is thickly studded with iron spikes. 



Fiq, 2 is a longitudinal section of the machine, thrnui;h which an in n axle or shaft 

 passes, as at A and B ; and is supported on bearings at each end, formed in the bars 



* Sec Nos. 40 and 50 of the Faimer's M.ngazine ; in which there are descriptive 

 plates: also the Appendix, Xo. MI. to Sir John Sinclair's Scottish Husbandry. 



