———S 
THRASHING MACHINES. 
then sheriff-depute of Hast-Lothian; and, in 
consequence of its partial though brief success, 
is commonly mentioned as the germ of the whole 
system of thrashing machinery. Mr. Menzies’ 
machine was patented in 1782, and declared by 
the Society of Improvers in Scotland to be likely 
“of great use to farmers, both in thrashing the 
grain clean from the straw and in saving a great 
deal of labour.” It was driven by a water-wheel, 
and contained a series of flails, which were made 
to revolve upon a cylinder; but, owing perhaps 
to the velocity which was found requisite for the 
correct performance of the work, the flails were 
soon broken in pieces, and the whole machine 
became useless. 
About the year 1758, a machine of a widely 
different construction, and of far more promising 
character, was invented by Mr. Michael Stirling, 
farmer in the parish of Dunblane, in Perthshire. 
This machine, somewhat similar to a flax-mill, 
had a water-wheel and perpendicular shaft or 
axle, into which were fixed four arms, enclosed 
in a cylinder about 3 feet high and 85 feet in 
diameter. The shaft and its arms, within the 
cylinder, were driven with considerable velo- 
city ; the corn was presented by hand, and was 
let down through an opening in the top of the 
cylinder, and underwent smart scutching strokes 
from the arms, so as to undergo a separation of 
the straw from the ears or grain; and the straw 
passed outward through an opening in one side 
of the cylinder, while the ears feli down through 
an opening in the floor into a mechanism of rakes 
and fanners, and there underwent a final separa- 
tion into grain and chaff. This machine was 
found to break off the ears of barley and wheat 
instead of clearing them of the grain, and proved 
to be tolerably suitable only for oats; yet it came 
into extensive use, and continued till quite a 
recent period to be used in some parts of Scot- 
land, and driven either by water or by catile. 
In 1772, a machine was invented by Messrs. 
Alderton and Smart, two gentlemen in Northum- 
berland, “by which the sheaves were carried 
round between an indented drum of six feet dia- 
meter, and a number of fluted rollers, which, 
pressing by means of springs against. the fluted 
concave, rubbed out the corn from the ears.” In 
1785, a machine, denominated “a mill for sepa- 
rating grain from straw,’ and constructed on a 
similar principle to the coffee-mill, was patented 
by Mr. William Winlaw of Marylebone, but it 
was found, not only to thrash the corn, but to 
bruise and grind the grain. In the latter part 
of last century, some other machines were in- 
vented for thrashing corn in the way of rubbing; 
but all, as well as Winlaw’s, more or less dam- 
aged the grain, and were in consequence dis- 
carded. In 1792, a machine was patented by 
Mr. Willoughby of Bedford in Nottinghamshire, 
constructed on a somewhat similar principle to 
the original one of Menzies, and comprising a 
series of loose or hinge-hung flails, which were 
435 
kept in rapid play by means of a horse-wheel, 
and made to act upon a grated platform. In 
1795, an invention was brought out by Mr. Jubb 
of Lewes for “passing the straw between two 
rapidly revolving beaters, under which it was 
held by two feeding-rollers, whence the corn fell 
into a winnowing-machine.” About the year 
1796, a machine was introduced to England, in- 
vented by Mr. James Wardropp of Ampthill in 
Virginia, and so formed as to be worked by two 
men. It was made with flails or elastic rods 
12 feet in length, of which twelve were attached 
in series, each having a spring requiring a power 
of twenty pounds to raise it three feet high at 
the point. A wallower shaft, with catches or 
teeth, in its revolution successively lifted each 
flail in alternate movements, so that three of 
the flails were operated upon by the whole 
power, viz., twenty pounds, while three were 
two-thirds raised, three one-third raised, and 
three at rest; consequently, the whole weight 
to be overcome was 120 pounds. The flails beat 
upon a grating, to which the corn was introduced 
by hand. “In communications from M. D. Mu- 
signy to the Society of Arts,” continues Mr. Ran- 
some, from whose work on Agricultural Imple- 
ments we have taken the preceding description, “a 
curious account is given of a machine worked by 
one horse, which, walking round a circle of forty 
feet, caused a cylinder, upon which thirty-two 
flails were placed, to revolve at the rate of twenty 
revolutions to one of the horse-wheel. The un- 
thrashed straw, being laid on the circle to be 
described by the cylinder, must have been difli- 
cult to confine to its correct position, and awk- 
ward both to place and to remove; while the 
corn would be thrown about in a most slovenly 
manner. Another plan, patented in 1796, by 
John Steedman, of Trentham, has also been ex- 
hibited, by which a number of flails fixed upon a 
rotatory cylinder were made continually to play 
upon a given spot, while a circular table, re- 
volving horizontally, brought a fresh supply of 
straw under their influence.” 
All the machines we have hitherto noticed, 
from Menzies’ onward, may now be regarded as 
obsolete in practice, and as serving mainly two 
purposes on record,—to evoke gratitude from 
farmers for the superior advantages enjoyed in 
the machinery of the present day, and to warn 
young genius against any needless and wasteful 
expenditure of its inventive power. Another 
one, too, which was invented by Sir Francis 
Kinloch, upon hints which he borrowed from in- . 
i spection of Messrs. Alderton and Smart’s, went 
more rapidly into desuetude than any of them, 
and yet had the rare merit of provoking the 
origination of the model machine of ail the best 
which are now in use. A large model which had 
been made under Sir Francis’s direction was sent 
by him to Mr. Andrew Meikle, civil engineer at 
Houston Mill, near Haddington, in order that it 
| might be tested by means of the water-wheel of 
