Dix, William Spicer. London: Printed by J. Myers, Ebbatson, Roger. Fox, N. Griffin, Carl J. Hardy, Thomas. Edited by Simon Gatrell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Heidegger, Martin. London: Routledge, MacDonald, Stuart.
Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principle of Population. London: Printed for J. It soon became evident that grain was something that produced wealth and security and men became agrarians rather than hunters and herdsmen.
Grain production grew apace, in fact it accumulated to the point where there was an unthreshable surplus. The hand could not rub fast enough the slow moving oxen could not tread out the crop and even the flail failed in its designed purpose.
The grain raiser rather than the manufacturer, turned his attention toward a machine that would separate the wheat from the straw. To such men as Meikle and Menzies belong the credit of making a start towards perfecting a threshing machine back in the 18th century, but the results of their efforts while spelling progress, did not anywhere near meet the requirements.
A Scotchman named Michael Menzies was one of the first of a splendid group of men who experimented with threshing machines and his efforts, while not crowned with complete success, are worthy of notice as paving the way for subsequent experiments. His machine, which was brought out in , consisted of a number of flails attached to a rotating cylinder driven by water power. It was capable of doing a considerable amount of work in a short time and attracted a good deal of attention.
The frequent breaking of the flails, however, demonstrated the fact that the really successful machine would not make use of the flail motion in its original form. His machine consisted of a vertical shaft supporting four cross arms all enclosed in a vertical cylinder. The grain was fed in at the top of the cylinder and the rapidly revolving arms beat the grain out of the straw during its downward passage. Both grain and chaff fell in a pile at the bottom and separation was afterward performed by hand in the usual fashion of the time by winnowing.
A horsepower outfit once used by U. Grant on his farm in Illinois about This was sometime before Vicksburg or before his days in the White House. Twenty years later an attempt was made to solve the problem by using the rubbing principle of separating the grain from the straw. This machine employed a large fluted or corrugated cylinder which revolved between a series of small corrugated rollers which were held forcibly against the large cylinder by means of stout springs whose tension could be varied to suit the conditions of the grain.
The friction between the corrugations of the rollers and the straw was depended upon to remove the grain from the heads. This machine was experimented with for some time with the hope that it would solve the problem. However, it, too, was found impractical, being slow in operation and liable to crack the grain.
The rubbing or frictional machine appeared after these experiments to be valueless and again inventors turned their attention to the flail principle, which had been all but proven successful. The pioneer work of the early investigators, whose work has just been discussed led to the final solution of the problem a few years later by another Scotchman, Andrew Meikle by name, who constructed a thresher embodying all the essential features of the present successful machine.
This machine, however, was a thresher only and not a combined thresher and separator such as we are so familiar with today. The Andrew Meikle threshing machine marked a new epoch in the grain raising industry.
Previous to his time there had been several attempts made to solve the problem of mechanical threshing but they were far from successful, though paving the way doubtless for the success which was finally achieved.
Up to the advent of the Meikle thresher the principal method of threshing was with the flail. This was slow and expensive and besides was very wasteful. A large amount of grain was always left in the straw.
All things considered it was out of the question at that time to raise grain on a large scale, and yet this was what the world was demanding more than anything else. During the middle or latter part of the eighteenth century a great industrial revolution set in all over Europe, but more especially in England. Several things transpired to bring this about. James Watt invented, or rather perfected, the steam engine at this time and gave to the world a cheap portable power which could be used to drive machinery in manufacturing.
The cotton and woolen industries gained a foothold in England, there were wars on the continent and the demand for textile goods was enormous. Just about this time, too, spinning and weaving machinery was invented which, coming at the same time with the advent of the steam engine, turned England in a very few years to the greatest manufacturing nation in the world.
This caused the cities and larger towns to flourish. Wages were high and laborers flocked from the rural regions into the cities where steady work at good wages could be had.
All this reacted upon agriculture. It created a greater demand than ever for agricultural products to feed the factory workers, and raised the prices of farm produce to prices heretofore unheard of, but at the same time it left the agricultural districts with insufficient help. Necessity again became the mother of invention. Inventors immediately set to work to solve the various problems involved in building labor saving agricultural machinery, and within a few years after the opening of the nineteenth century, we find at least crude designs of all the leading types of farm implements which are so common and familiar at the present time.
A steam-powered threshing machine. Photo Credit: Library of Congress. The invention of the threshing machine is credited to Andrew Meikle, a Scottish engineer. The threshing machine came about in the s. In the United States, Alexander Anderson created a model in Since Thomas Jefferson and George Washington owned farms, threshing machines were an interest to both of them. Together they went to see the new machine in action in August I expect every day to receive from Mr.
Pinckney the model of the Scotch threshing machine…Mr. I hope to get it in time to have one erected at Monticello to clean out the present crop. At his Monticello estate, Jefferson ended up using three threshing machines. Pinkney has seen the Scotch threshing machine. He says that three men and three horses get out from 8. He promises I shall have a model in time to get out the crop of this year.
Pinckney the model of the Scotch threshing machine I hope to get it in time to have one erected at Monticello to clean out the present crop. Should that machine fail, more horses must be kept for treading wheat in the proper season I have just arrived here in the Ship Amsterdam Packet, after a passage of 68 days from London. I shall have the honour to bring with me a box addressed to you, Sir, of which the key is inclosed in a letter from Mr.
Pinckney, which, on recollection I have thought right to transmit herewith containing the model of a threshing mill. I have accidentally discovered that the person who made it, and who seems an ingenious Millwright, came on board the same Ship with myself as a Steerage passenger, with a view to settle in America.
If you direct me, Sir, I shall send the model immediately that you may be enabled to form some idea of his abilities.
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