THRASHING-MACHINE. 



THRIFT. 



Considerable improvements have since been 

 effected. In the statements of the trials of im- 

 plements at the Royal English Agricultural So- 

 ciety's meeting at Cambridge, in 1841, the 

 quantity of wheat thrashed by two four-horse 

 portable machines manufactured by J. R. and 

 A. Ransome, of Ipswich, and R. Garrett and 

 Son, Leiston, was respectively 61 bushels and 

 | of a peck, and 61 bushels and of a peck 

 per hour ; and the corn was clean thrashed and 

 uninjured. 



This must not be taken as a criterion on 

 which to found an average, as it was doubtless 

 the result of stimulated exertion ; but it is not 

 unusual with machines of this construction, 

 with reaped wheat in fair condition, to thrash 

 100 co. or 400 bushels in a day of 10 hours, and 

 the same quantity of mown barley. 



It should, however, be observed, that these, 

 having neither rakes nor fans, the work of 

 which is done by hand, would require 8 men 

 and 5 boys, and a change of horses in the day. 



Thrashing-machines are now very generally 

 used in the United States, to get out the crops of 

 wheat, &c. Before their introduction flails were 

 employed in the Northern and Eastern States, 

 whilst in the Middle and Southern States, 

 treading with horses and cattle was the cus- 

 tomary mode of thrashing. The cost by em- 

 ploying the flail was generally estimated at 10 

 bushels out of every 100, which, when wheat 

 was a good price, proved very expensive. The 

 employment of horses, though expeditious, is 

 very objectionable, the grain being rendered 

 gritty and filthy, so as to lessen its value in 

 the market. The practice, too, of setting 

 horses at such hard and peculiar work in hot 

 weather proved injurious and often destructive 

 to them. 



The notice furnished in this article of the 

 successive improvements made in Britain, in 

 contrivances for thrashing out grain, will show 

 the efforts there made and the results obtained. 

 Ingenuity would seem to have been still more 

 actively employed in the same pursuit in the 

 United States, where, within a few years past, 

 more than 100 patents have been obtained for 

 inventions and improvements of the thrashing- 

 machine. These have nearly all involved two 

 main principles : 1st, a beater consisting of 

 bars ; and, 2dly, a cylinder furnished with 

 spikes instead of bars. This last may perhaps 

 be called the American principle, par excellence. 

 Where bars are used, the machine requires an 

 increased velocity equal to 300 revolutions per 

 minute, over what is requisite where the cylin- 

 der is furnished with spikes. It is for this rea- 

 son chiefly, that the spike machines have been 

 so much more generally used. It must, how- 

 ever, be observed, that where the beater is com- 

 posed of bars, the force required to work the 

 machine is about one-third less in performing 

 the same amount of work. In Eams's patent, 

 the bars are of wrought or cast-iron, notched 

 on the edges. 



Pitts's Thrasher and Separator is con- 

 sidered a machine by which a great saving of , 

 labour is effected over the ordinary machines, j 

 the operations of thrashing and cleaning being 

 performed at the same time. The bundles are 

 131 



fed to the machine at one end, and the clean, 

 seed, without a kernel being scattered, taken 

 from the other. Its weight is about 700 Ibs., 

 and it occupies a space about 8 feet by 2 feet 4 

 inches. The whole machinery is durable, and 

 easily kept in repair. It thrashes and cleans 

 all kinds of grain in the best manner, perform- 

 ing the work at the rate of from 25 to 50 bushels 

 per hour. Four hands are required to tend the 

 machine when in operation, viz. one to for- 

 ward the bundles, one to feed, one to measure 

 and put the grain into bags, and one to pitch 

 the straw away as it comes from the machine. 

 It can be easily moved from place to place, and 

 attached to any horse power, and can be used 

 in the field as well as on the thrashing-floor, 

 there being no loss or scattering of grain after 

 it is once fed into the machine. The late Judge 

 Buel considered this machine as the best adapt- 

 ed to the purpose of any he had ever seen. 



Horse Poiver. The power almost universally 

 employed to propel thrashing-machines in the 

 United States is that adapted to horses. These 

 are generally of a description which admits of 

 transportation along with the machine from 

 place to place. They are of two kinds, one 

 called the sweep power, in which the horses 

 attached pass round in a circle ; the other 

 called the endless chain or tread power, where the 

 horse or horses move as if walking or trotting, 

 but in consequence of the rotation of the end- 

 less chain of bars on which they are placed, 

 always remain in the Siime place. Mixe's cast 

 iron portable stceep power is generally considered 

 the best now in use, in the Middle States at least. 

 Its weight is from 700 to 1000 Ibs., and the price 

 $80 for a two-horse, and $90 for a four-horse 

 power. 



The endless chain or tread power is coming 

 into very general use, being specially adapted 

 to farms where there is much barn or shed- 

 room, admitting of the thrashing being done 

 under shelter; whereas, with the sweep power, 

 the operations require the open yard. 



The tread power, called Pitts's, is now in 

 high repute. These, as well as all other kinds 

 of machinery used in thrashing, are exten- 

 sively manufactured in Wilmington, Delaware, 

 by Hollinsworth & Co., and may also be had 

 of Mr. Chandler, manufacturer of agricultural 

 implements, 196 Market street, Philadelphia, 

 as also at most of the numerous depots for 

 agricultural implements in that and other cities 

 in the United States. The price of the one- 

 horse endless chain power is $75 ; of the two- 

 horse do., $85. It is said that a two-horse 

 tread power is equal to a four-horse sweep 

 power. 



THREAVE. A quantity of grain, consisting 

 of 24 sheaves. It is sometimes written thrave. 



THRIFT (Statice, from statizo, to stop: in 

 allusion to the powerful astringency of some of 

 the species). The species of thrift ought to be 

 in every garden, on account of their lively little 

 flowers. There are three indigenous species 

 of thrift or sea-lavender, all perennial, viz : 



1. The common thrift, or sea gilliflower (S. 

 Armeria), which is a common ornament of rus- 

 tic gardens, where it serves for edgings of 

 flower-beds ; nor does this plant suffer much 



1041 



