r 



144 



ever, which, before the invention of mills, it was hardly 

 possible to get executed, in the harvest time, without the 

 greatest difficulty, and at a heavy loss. He is thus also 

 enabled to provide seed corn in the spring, which was not 

 always an easy operation. When threshing for seed was 

 done in a hurry, it may easily be supposed in how sloven- 

 ly a manner the operation would be performed. In the 

 busiest time of harvest also, straw can be got for cover- 

 ing stacks, which formerly could hardly be obtained. 

 6. It is found that strong wheat-straw is more useful for 

 cattle when threshed in a mill, it is so much more soften- 

 ed than by the flail *. 7. If a stack of corn is brought 

 from the field into the yard, too soon, and is heated, it is 

 threshed in one day, goes to the kiln and suffers no loss ; 

 but before the invention of mills, when threshed by the 

 flail, it was so soured that it was almost unsaleable, and 

 a loss of perhaps 20 per cent, was thereby sustained. 

 8. Mr John Shirreff remarks, that by the threshing-mill, 

 the separation of the grain from the straw, is not only 

 more complete than by any other known means, but the 

 separation of the straw from the grain and the chaff, by 

 the rake, and of the chaff and small seeds from the grain, 

 by the fanners and skreens, all driven by the same machi- 

 nery, are advantages not inferior, perhaps, to the separr- 

 tion of the grain from the straw in the first instance. 

 Taking all these circumstances into consideration, and 

 that prior to the invention of threshing mills, drudgery, 

 it may be said, stared the farmer in the face ; and that 

 besides heavy losses, it was the source of endless trouble 

 and vexation to every occupier of land, it is not to be 

 wondered at, that the threshing-mill should be considered 



Communication fn.m Mr Peter Jack of Moncur. 



