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IMPLEMENTS OF HUSBANDRY

SECT. IV.

IMPLEMENTS FOR THRESHING AND CLEANING CORN.

The Threshing-machine is unquestionabty one of the mostvaluable implements that has either been invented or intro-duced into Scotland , or any other country, in the present age.The saving of manual labour, and that of a very severe kind,by means of this invention, is perhaps beyond calculation,while the grain is separated from the straw, in a more perfectand expeditious manner, than what has hitherto been accom-plished by any other sort of instrument hitherto adopted. Itis absolutely impossible to form an adequate idea, of the ad-vantages obtained by this important implement, without con-sidering the manner in which the threshing of corn was for-merly executed.

Prior to the introduction of this useful machine, the opera-tion of detaching the grain from the straw was generally per-formed by that well-known tool thejiail , and that often to themanifest injury, not only of the husbandman, but also of thecommunity ; for although, in some instances, the work mightbe tolerably well executed, yet, in a great majority of cases,it was far otherwise. It is generally supposed, that a quanti-ty, equal to the seed over all North Britain, was annually lost,even in the best instances j but where the allowance to thethresher was either a proportion of the produce, known bythe name of lot , (commonly a twenty-fifth part), or when hewas paid in money at so much per boll, the temptation to exe-cute the work in a slovenly manner was so great, that proba-bly twice the quantity required for seed was lost upon manyfarms. This evil could not escape the notice of intelligent