On Threshing out JVheat by a Roller. 43 



pose is to recommend a mode of getting out wheat which 

 is suired to general use. If a farmer has but thirty or 

 fonv bushels, he and another hand, and two horses may 

 completely tread and secure it in a summer's day ; if he 

 has a thousand, or five thousand, his hands and horses 

 musr be in proportion ; and between harvest and the first 

 of March, it may with the greatest convenience be all 

 prepared for market. In the autumn, he may tread, and 

 clean and st 11 ; if the price be not to his mind, it may 

 lay ready for the spring market. At any season, wheat 

 in the chaff keeps admirably in a barn, and by tread- 

 ing and carrying it in, chaff and all, without any fanning, 

 it may afterwards be cleaned at leisure. The winter next 

 after the first embargo, in Mr. Jefferson's presidency I 

 had mycrop of wheat trodden out, and put into my barn, 

 in the chaff. The next year's crop, the succeeding win- 

 ter, was treated in like manner. In the spring of 1809, 

 when the embargo was removed, I went to work, and 

 fanned, and clemed the whole, and found it all perfectly 

 sound and merchantable. 



The roller which I have described was first invented, 

 as I have been informed, and applied to treading wheat, 

 by Mr. Benjamin Sylvester, now deceased, of Caroline 

 county, in the state of Maryland. John Clayton, Esq. 

 a judge of our supreme <:ourt, and an excellent farmer, 

 introduced it into this county. My friend, George Cum- 

 mins, who never suff rs any improvement in farming to 

 escape him, adopted it immediately after seeing its ope- 

 ration at Mr. Clayton's, and has continued its use more 

 than twenty years. He annually raises from 500 to 800 

 bushels of wheat, and perhaps an equ-il quantity of oats; 

 and he thinks that the great desideratum in threshing 



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