INSTRUMENTS OP HUSBANDRY. 81 



where a considerable proportion of it consists of wheat, and 

 where the machine is heavy, the labour must be severe. 

 This additional labour, however, where no other power can 

 be applied, farmers consider to be indispensable ; and may 

 not be so destructive to horses, if the work is not made op- 

 pressive, merely for the sake of expedition. 



Mr Blackie of Holydown, gives the following calculation 

 of the number of horses required for the different crops. A 

 four-horse mill he thinks is quite sufficient for oats or bar- 

 ley ; but where there is much wheat, a six-horse power is 

 required. A three-horse power does very well for potatoe- 

 oats, when the corn is fed in by a careful hand ; the mill 

 then threshes much cleaner than a flail : But when the corn 

 is put in faster than the mill is ready for it, the horses are 

 oppressed, and the work is not well done. Mr Shirreff is 

 of opinion, that a threshing-mill, of the power of six horses, 

 will thresh the produce of 400 Scotch acres, all under corn 

 crops, say 3000 bolls, in the space of only thirty weeks in 

 the year, or at the rate of 100 bolls per week. 



2. It is said that working threshing-mills by horses, is 

 a power so unsteady, and attended with so much destruction 

 to them, and hence so expensive, that some farmers still 

 prefer the flail, to the erection and keeping up of the ma- 

 chinery and horses. Though such an idea is far from being 

 general, yet it certainly would be desirable, to exempt the 

 horses, regularly working on the farm, from so laborious a 

 task, and oxen have been strongly recommended for that 

 purpose. 



A gentleman on the borders, who rents about L. 4-000 

 per annum, informs me, that before he had collected water 

 sufficient to thresh his crop, (which may be done much 

 oftener than people are commonly aware of), he was accus- 

 tomed, for many years, to thresh his crop by oxen j and he 



VOL. i. F 



