250 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



fanning-mill as it is commonly termed, for separating the 

 grain from the chafi'. 



According to all history, sacred and profane, the com- 

 mon and only mode of accomplishing this was by throwing 

 the whole into the air by means of a long, shallow basket 

 called a fan, at such a time as there was wind enough to blow 

 away the chaff and dirt. 



The first winnower containing all the principles of those 

 in present use, was made in Scotland, in 1710, by Andrew 

 Meikle, who brought the ideas from Holland which since, 

 both in Great Britain and in this country, have been so thor- 

 oughly elaborated into the machine which has now become 

 indispensable. It is among the histories of the machine that 

 when it was first introduced in Scotland, certain sensitive 

 persons denounced it as an impious device, "as it created a 

 wind where the Lord had made a calm." Of fanning mills 

 there were constructed during the past year about fifty thou- 

 sand. Corn-shellers, both those worked by power and by 

 hand, are, of course, an American invention, and of great 

 consequence and utility. Thirty or forty patents have 

 been granted in this country for this valuable machine since 

 1810, the date of the first. 



A curious record with a drawing is among the English 

 patents, as follows : " Letters Patent to Thomas Masters of 

 Pensilvania — Planter, his Exrs. Admrs. and assignes, of the 

 sole Use and Benefit of a New Invencion found out by Sybilla 

 Mathews his wife for cleanino; and curino; the Indian Corn 

 growing in the Several Colonies of America dated Nov 25th 

 1715." The drawing shows a set of stamps worked up and 

 down by lugs on a horizontal shaft driven by a water-wheel, 

 there is also the drawing of a kiln for drying the corn. Over 

 sixty thousand corn-shellers are annually manufactured in 

 this country. The grain cradle has performed a very impor- 

 tant part in our agriculture, and apparently still does, as over 

 one hundred and sixty-eight thousand are made every year. 



This implement, or improvements in it, have been patented 

 many times since 1800. 



Its origin is not given by any writer that I can find. Bar- 

 naby Googe, in his " Historic of Husbandry," in 1584, says, 

 " besides sickles with a toothed edge, where the grain is tall 



