RAILWAY OR ENDLESS-CHAIN HORSE POWER. 
15 1 
adjoining counties, which produce, with each 
wheat harvest, an abundant crop of pigeon weed , 
Ackley's clover , or a variety of the May weed, 
owing to these itinerant threshers. If a farmer 
is so unfortunate as to have much foul seed of 
any kind among his grain, by threshing it, at a 
season when it is most convenient, if he threshes 
with such a machine as Allen's , very little, if 
any, of the foul seed will be carried otf with the 
chaff and straw, and find its way into the ma¬ 
nure, as is the case when grain is threshed with 
self-cleaners. But, if the foul seed is all retained 
with the grain, it is an easy matter to separate 
one from the other, and thereby prevent its 
being returned to the field with the manure. 
There are but few farmers, who cannot thresh 
all of their grain on their rainy and leisure 
days, and incur very little expense, if they had 
a machine of their own. Since I have owned 
one of Allen’s powers, it has not cost me one 
bushel in twenty to thresh my grain. With 
two light horses, by changing them every hour, 
and with two men and a boy, I threshed forty- 
five bushels of wheat in half a day. 
And here, permit me to speak of another ad¬ 
vantage and source of profit, by threshing with 
such a machine. We may thresh about a half 
a day, and use the straw to a much better ad¬ 
vantage, than when it is all threshed at once; 
for, when it has but just been threshed, cattle 
and sheep will eat a great deal of it; and be¬ 
sides all this, managing in the way proposed, 
the sheds and stalls of stock are more likely to 
be littered with dry straw, which I ever consider 
a great addition to their thrift and comfort, dur¬ 
ing the cold and stormy days of winter. Dur¬ 
ing the cold winter months, most farmers find 
little to do, to a good advantage ,* and, in my 
opinion, they can work at nothing more 'profita¬ 
ble , than threshing their grain and taking care 
of their stock, &c. After I have threshed 
a part of a day, the straw is passed through a 
corn-stalk cutter, which is driven by horse pow¬ 
er, with which I cut all of my corn stalks and 
hay; then the hay, corn stalks, and straw are 
wet with water, and a little corn or oat meal 
applied, and cattle eat it with as much avidity 
as one would eat the best New-Jersey slap¬ 
jacks. 
There is another advantage in having such a 
horse power and threshing machine. Many 
farmers, like myself, wish to thresh their seed 
wheat, in the fall, but do not want their whole 
crop threshed so early in the season; but if 
they are obliged to depend upon an itinerant 
thresher, they are too often sadly disappointed 
in the consummation of their plans, with regard 
to early seeding. But with one of this small 
kind of machines, three or four hands, during a 
part of a rainy day, could thresh all the seed 
wheat that an ordinary farmer would be likely 
to sow, in one season. I have known instances 
where farmers have been hindered in their 
seeding, more than two weeks, when their ground 
was ready for the reception of the seed, simply 
because they could not get a machine to thresh 
it. And, furthermore, it is frequently the case, 
that time enough is consumed, in going after, 
and removing a machine, to do up the neces¬ 
sary threshing for the time, if one had a ma¬ 
chine of his own. 
Another advantage of this kind of horse pow¬ 
ers, over the sweep power is, one man can use 
it for cutting hay, &c.; whereas, the horses, on 
a sweep power, would require a driver. 
In order to give an idea of what one man can 
do with this kind of power, which he could not 
do with a sweep power, (because he would need 
a driver,) permit me to state briefly, what I per¬ 
form with mine. I have about thirty-five acres 
of tillable land; and I use one of Allen’s horse 
powers, to do my threshing. I use it to turn the 
fanning mill, instead of a hired man, when I 
clean grain. Instead of a man to turn the grind 
stone, I let a horse do it. With it I drive my 
turning lathe; and I design to use it for grinding 
grain. I also drive a saw which cuts all my fire 
wood. The past season, I have been erecting a 
new dwelling house, and with a small buzz saw, 
placed on the shaft of my fire-wood cutter, with 
one horse, I, alone, can slit out more lumber for 
cornices, window frames, door frames, and what¬ 
ever needed slitting about the house, than eight men 
with hand saws , and with a great deal more ac¬ 
curacy. There are many other purposes where 
one man can manage this kind of horse power, 
where it would not be at all feasible for him to 
use a sweep power. It has been the means of 
saving me many dollars, which I should have 
been obliged to pay for the performance of man¬ 
ual labor; and it has enabled me to make use 
of every small piece of plank or board in the most 
economical manner. Pieces of plank were 
readily cut into thin strips for blinds; and 
pieces of boards, into laths, so that everything 
was worked up. I use it for driving a buzz saw, 
for cutting the tenons on pannel doors; and one 
can cut more tenons in eight or ten minutes, 
with it, than a joiner could in an hour, with a 
hand saw. The tenons on a four or six-pannel 
door, a joiner would probably make in an hour 
and a half; but with such a machine as mine, 
he would be able to do it in five or six minutes. 
It is true, indeed, that all this may be accom¬ 
plished with a sweep power; but it could not, 
ordinarily, be done merely with one horse and 
one man. Were I to erect another dwelling 
house, I would not be destitute of the aid of 
such a machine, for half its value. 
In conclusion, let me assure my brother farm¬ 
ers, that I have written what I do know, and 
testified what I have seen, and what I have per¬ 
formed with my machine—another, with a ma¬ 
chine similar, cannot fail to do. If you will 
procure one of this kind of horse powers, for 
threshing your grain, cutting your straw, corn 
stalks, hay, my word for it, it will pay for itself 
By cutting my fodder, for two years past, I have 
saved, at the lowest estimate, two tons of hay 
per year, which would be equal to twenty-eight 
dollars; whereas, when I practised feeding 
whole or uncut fodder, I was, nearly every sea¬ 
son, under the necessity of purchasing hay, in 
order to sustain the same amount of stock, which 
I now keep. S. Edwards Todd. 
Lake Ridge, Tompkins Co., N. Y. 
