405
From the great improvements which have been made inthe construction of threshing-machines, the operations ofthreshing and dressing the grain for market are now reducedto much simplicity, and mostly carried on simultaneously, es-pecially on large farms which have powerful machines, fulland perfect in all their parts. In endeavouring to give acondensed view of these operations, the grain in the straw ispresumed to have been previously conveyed from the rick-yard into the bay of the barn, as it used to be before the em-ployment of machines; and this expence, therefore, is notmeant to be considered in the following description and esti-mate. In many farms there is no bay, and the grain is car-ried directly from the rick to the tlircshing-slage. This,however, seems an objectionable arrangement, as it may oftenbe necessary to thresh when the weather is so bad as to makeit very improper to carry in a rick. It is better, therefore,always to have one rick in the barn, ready to be threshedwhen necessary; and to fill up the bay again either imme-diately, or on the first favourable opportunity.
In the corn end of the barn, one man feeds the grain inthe straw into the machine, and is assisted by two half grownlads or young women, one of whom pitches or carries thesheaves from the bay close to the threshing stage, while theother opens the bands of every sheaf, and lays the sheaves suc-cessively on a small table close beside the feeder, who spreadsthem evenly on the feeding stage, that they may be drawn insuccessively by the fluted rollers to undergo the operation ofthreshing. In the opposite end of the barn, or straw-house,into which the cylindrical rakes or shakers deliver the cleanthreshed straw, one man forks up the straw from the floor to thestraw mow, and two lads or young women build it and treadit down. In a threshing-machine worked by water or wind,this is the whole expence of hand labour in the threshing partof the operation; and as a powerful machine can readilythresh from tw r o hundred to three hundred bushels of grain ina w orking day of nine hours, the expence is exceedingly small