all instances, they merely thrash corn, or leave 
it in the same condition as the flail, without 
performing any winnowing operation. One of 
the oldest of any note was introduced to public 
notice about twenty years ago by the Very Rev- 
erend Principal Baird; and this consists merely 
of a chain with its beaters and other thrashing 
appliances, and has a toothed pinion on its axis, 
and is worked by means of a toothed wheel, with 
handle and large regulating fly-wheel,—the pin- 
ion having 6 teeth and the wheel about 50, so 
that, by making 20 revolutions of the handle per 
minute, the chain with its beaters is impelled at 
the rate of 200. This machine, however, absorbs 
a comparatively great amount of power, and re- 
quires the labourers employed upon it to be re- 
lieved at intervals, and has never come into 
general use. Ransome’s, which obtained the 
| commendation of the judges at the Liverpool 
meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, is 
made on a different principle, and moved by 
means of a lever on the one side and a crank 
handle on the other, and worked by four men, 
who relieve one another by change of motion. 
Two of the most convenient in use, and at the 
| same time distinguished for efficiency, are Gar- 
| rett’s large-sized hand thrashing-machine, which 
may be worked either by four men or by one 
horse, and Garrett’s middle-sized thrashing-ma- 
chine, which is just equal to the power of two 
men. 
The quantity of work done by the thrashing 
machines of former days, particularly when com- 
pared with the cost of erecting them and the 
amount of accompanying labour in working them, 
was very unequal, and throws great light, in the 
way of comparison, upon the working efficiency 
of the best machines of the present day. ‘The 
following instances, extracted by Mr. Ransome 
from the Agricultural Reports, may be taken as 
a good specimen :— 
Thrashing per Day. 
in 1796, R. Douglas states that mills 
4 horses, would do from 150 to 
180 bushels, 
| In the reports of Roxburgh and Selkirk, : Bros olbollevor 
>) 
by water, or wit 
great execution. 
In the report of Norfolk, in 1804, Ar- 
thur Young gives an account of machines 
which belonged to the following parties :— 
40 co. wheat, 
or 50 co. barley, 
or 60 co. oats or 
pease. 
Droziers, Reedham, built by Wigfull, 
cost £120, worked by 7 persons and 6 
horses. | ' 
aN 
20 co. wheat, 
or 30 co. barley, 
or 40 co. oats or 
pease. 
Farrow, Shipdam, built by Wigfull, work- 
ed by 7 persons, and by 4, 5, or 6 
horses. 
=. 
Beck, Castle Rising, built by Wigfull, 
cost 200 guineas, worked by 6 persons, 
and 4, 5, or 6 horses. 
32 co. wheat, 
or 64 co. barley, 
or 80 co. pease. 
24 co. wheat, 
or 55 co. barley, 
or 63 to 84 co. 
oats. 
(IS 
Whiting, Tring, built by Fordyce from 
Scotland, cost £200, worked by 6 per- 
sons and 6 horses. 
[2S 
THRASHING MACHINES. 
Thrashing per Day. 
Bevan, Riddlesworth, built by an engineer 40 co. wheat, 
from Leith, cost £100, worked by 10 < or 40 co. barley, 
men and 8 horses. or 50 co. oats. 
Coke, Holkham, cost £600, worked by 64 ; 
12 men and 8 horses. co. wheat. 
30 co. wheat, 
or 32 co. barley, 
or 40 co. pease. 
boro’, cost 100 guineas, worked with 2 
Reeves, Heverland, built: by Assby, Bly- 
or 3 horses. 
Styleman, Smithsham, cost £300, ae 80 co. wheat, 
by 10 persons and 8 horses. or 120 co. barley, 
pease, or oats. 
In the report of Kent, R. Boys, in 1805, 
remarks on the only thrashing-mill 
then in Kent, which, by a number of 
improvements, and after many altera- 
tions, he finds to answer extremely 
well; and he states that it requires 4 
horses and 12 men to work it. 
In Sir John Sinclair’s System of Hus- 
bandry, published in 1812, we find an 
account of R. Kerr’s machine, which, 
with 6 horses, 4 men, and 4 women, 
would thrash 
24 qrs. wheat, 
or 32 qrs. barley, 
or 40 qrs. oats. 
50 bolls, or about 
300 bushels 
of wheat. 
An ordinarily good Scotch thrashing-machine 
of the present day, even though it possess none 
of the improvements which have been introduced 
within the last ten years, if a two-horse power, 
ought to thrash and clean, on the average, 14 
bushels of wheat or 20 of barley or oats in the 
hour, and requires an attendance of 5 persons,— 
if a four-horse power, ought to thrash and clean 26 
bushels of wheat or 32 of barley or oats per hour, 
and requires an attendance of 7 persons,—if a six- 
horse power, ought to thrash and clean 32 bushels 
of wheat or 38 of barley or oats per hour, and 
requires an attendance of 9 persons,—and. if an 
eight-horse power, ought to thrash and clean 38 
bushels of wheat or 44 of barley or oats per hour, 
and requires an attendance of 10 persons. A 
good four-horse power portable thrashing-ma- 
chine, such as is made by the Messrs. Ransome 
and the Messrs. Garrett, ought, on the average, 
to thrash about 40 bushels of wheat or of mown 
barley in the hour, provided the crop have been 
reaped in fair condition; and two of these ma- 
chines, when worked under stimulated exertion 
at the meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society 
in 1841, actually thrashed each a little upwards 
of 61 bushels; yet every such machine suffers 
enormously in comparison with a Scotch one, as 
it thrashes only and does not clean, and requires 
to be attended by no fewer than eight men and 
five boys. A good English hand thrashing-ma- 
chine, worked by a power of four men, ought to 
thrash from 10 to 12 bushels per hour of wheat 
of average yield and in fair condition, but will 
thrash proportionally less of wheat which is either 
poor in yield, long in the straw, or reaped with 
the scythe.—Ransome’s Implements of Agriculture. 
—The Annual Register of Agricultural Imple- 
ments.—Reports upon Shows of Agricultural Im- 
plements in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 
Society— The General Report of Scotland—Com- 
munications to the Board of Agriculture—Cata- 
