236 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



fordshire, Southdown, Norfolk, Heath, Herdwick, Cheviot, 

 Dunfaced, Shetland, Irish. 1 



With the increased demand for corn and meat from the 

 towns the necessity of new and better implements became 

 apparent, and many patents were taken out : by Praed, for drill 

 ploughs, in 1781 ; by Horn, for sowing machines, in 1784 ; by 

 Heaton, for harrows, in 1787 ; for sowing machines, by Sandi- 

 lands, 1788 ; for reaping machines, by Boyce, 1799 ; winnowing 

 machines, by Cooch, 1800 ; haymakers, by Salmon, 1816 ; and 

 for scarifiers, chaff-cutters, turnip-slicers, and food-crushers. 2 

 But the great innovation was the threshing machine of Meikle. 

 Like most inventions, it had forerunners. The first threshing 

 machine is mentioned in the Select Transactions of the. Society 

 of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland, 

 published in 1743 by Maxwell. It was invented by Michael 

 Menzies, and by it one man could do the work of six. One 

 machine was worked by a great water-wheel and triddles, 

 another by a little wheel of 3 feet diameter, moved by a small 

 quantity of water. The first attempts to substitute horse 

 or other power for manual in threshing were directed to 

 the revolution of jointed flails, which should strike the 

 floor on which the corn was spread, but this proved un- 

 satisfactory, so that rubbing the grain out of the straw by 

 revolving cylinders was tried. 3 Young, in his northern tour, 

 met a Mr. Clarke at Belford in Northumberland, who was 

 famous for mechanics, 4 among his inventions being a threshing 

 machine worked by one horse, which does not seem to have 

 effected much. Eventually Mr. A. Meikle, of Houston MilL 

 near Haddington, in 1798 erected a machine the principles of| 

 which, much modified, are those of to-day; and in 



1 Cttlley on Live Stock, p. vi. 



2 7?. A. S. E. Journal, 1892, p. 27. 



3 Morton, Cyclopaedia of Agriculture, ii. 964. 



4 Northern Tour, lii. 49. Clarke also experimented on the effect of 

 electricity on vegetables, electrifying turnips in boxes with the result that 

 growth was quickened and weight increased. 



