400
ON THE AKABLE LAND
SECT. XIV.
OF THRESHING.
*- I..
The operation of separating the grain from the straw, orthreshing, was universally executed in Scotland by means ofthe flail, till about twenty-four years ago. Since that period*a complete revolution has been effected in this branch of agri-cultural work, and the use of machinery has become univer-sal in all the improved and well-managed districts of Scot-land . Several ingenious men in different places, and at dif-ferent times before that period, made attempts to apply ma-chinery for the more expeditious and more economical ac-complishment of that important rural operation. But the firsteffective threshing-machine, upon that principle which has sincemet with universal approbation, was erected by Mr GeorgeMeiklc, in February 1786 , at Kilbagie, in exact imitation ofa working model invented and executed in the preceding yearby his father Mr Andrew Meikle, a most ingenious mill-wright near Haddington in East Lothian . Since that time,the threshing-machine has been gradually and rapidly extend-ed through all the improved farming districts in Scotland ,where there is not now an arable farm of any importance thatis not furnished with this most useful implement. * Succes-sive improvements of material importance have been madeby the meritorious inventor, and others have been ingraftedby other artists upon the original invention; but the efficientprinciple continues invariably the same ; and being both ef-ficacious and perfectly simple, it is perhaps not susceptible