INSTRUMENTS OF HUSBANDRY. 79 



5. THE THRESHING-MILL. But the great glory of the 

 Scotch instruments of husbandry is '* the threshing-mill," 

 by means of which, these important operations, the separa- 

 tion of the grain from the straw, and in some measure the 

 cleaning of it afterwards, have been carried to a degree of 

 perfection and extent in Scotland, altogether unrivalled in 

 any other country.* There is no doubt, that many attempts 

 had been made, at various times, for constructing machines 

 competent to the task of threshing ; but I am fully convin- 

 ced, that had it not been for the superior ingenuity of An- 

 drew Meikle, no threshing-mill would have been brought 

 to any high degree of perfection in our time. To him may 

 be justly attributed the merit of the feeding-rollers, and the 

 drum; the plan of the flax-mill having been adopted in 

 other cases. Every friend to merit, must rejoice to hear, 

 that the inventor of so important a machine, was rendered 

 comfortable in his old age, and enabled to provide lor his 

 family after his death, by the voluntary donations of his 

 grateful countrymen.f 



* As a proof of the great number of threshing-mills and fanners erect- 

 ted in Scotland, I am informed, that in the Carse of Cowrie district alone, 

 which is a tract of about fourteen miles long and four miles broad, there 

 are no less than 120 threshing-mills driven by horses, and ten by water_ 

 In other parts of Scotland, threshing-mills are so general, that it is very 

 difficult to find a man who will thresh with the flail. A millwright also 

 has now become a separate trade or occupation from other brandies of 

 mechanism, in places where that was not formerly the case. 



t The history of the oripin of the threshing-mill is very ably explain- 

 ed in the Farmer's Magazine, and in Brown's Treatise on Rural Affairs. 

 It is certain that skutch mills had been previously invented, and mills of 

 that description are capable of threshing oats, and barley. That, however, 

 does not detract from the merits of Mr Meikle, whose mills arc capable 

 of threshing all sorts of grain, and particularly wheat, in a superior man- 

 ner. 



