PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE. 57 



maintain itself against the more ancient instru- 

 ments, the flail and the horse. Still it is to be 

 hoped that new experiments may succeed better, 

 and abridge the manual labour usually given to this 

 branch of husbandry, and that the mechanical genius 

 of our own country, which is not inferior to that of 

 any other, may be the first to combine power ajid 

 cheapness in this machine. 



This hope is probably suggested by the descrip- 

 tion of a new invented threshing machine now be- 

 fore me, and which I may be permitted to trans- 

 cribe from the letter of the inventor. " The ma- 

 chine I have built is three feet wide. One horse 

 will thresh, with much ease, as much wheat as can 

 be laid on it by one man (the straw to be taken 

 away by another), say from fifty to one hundred 

 bushels in a day, and the saving of grain will pay for 

 the labour ; for I think that, with good attendance, 

 not a particle of grain can escape with the straw. 

 The expense of the machine will be from fifty to 

 seventy dollars, exclusive of the moving power, 

 which is a wheel about ten feet diameter on an up- 

 right shaft, to which a lever is fixed to hitch the 

 horse. Within this main wheel a small one should 

 be made to work, about two feet diameter, on a 

 shaft carrying a drum four feet wide. With this 

 simple gearing, and drawn by a horse that walks 

 well, the machine will give about eighteen hundred 

 strokes in a minute, and, if fully attended, will, with- 

 out hard labour for the horse, thresh a bushel every 

 three or four minutes." 



V. The Fanning-mill. Other things being equal, 

 the cleanest wheat is most easily preserved, and, on 

 manufacture, gives the best flour and in the largest 

 quantity. These considerations offer inducement 

 enough for the employment of this machine, which, 

 besides doing its business well, saves a great deal 

 of time. It is too well known to require descrip- 

 tion. 



