Threshing machines

Marshall threshing machine at work at Holcot steam fair 2008

The thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling, threshing machine (or simply thresher), was a machine first invented by Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in agriculture. It was invented (c.1784) for the separation of grain from stalks and husks. For thousands of years, grain was separated by hand with flails, and was very laborious and time consuming. Mechanization of this process took much of the drudgery out of farm labour.

Early social impacts

The Swing Riots in the UK were partly a result of the threshing machine. Following years of war, high taxes and low wages, farm labourers finally snapped in 1830. These farm labourers had faced unemployment for a number of years due to the widespread introduction of the threshing machine and the policy of enclosing fields. No longer were thousands of men needed to tend the crops, a few would suffice. With fewer jobs, lower wages and no prospects of things improving for these workers the threshing machine was the final straw, the machine was to place them on the brink of starvation. The Swing Rioters smashed threshing machines and threatened farmers who had them.

The riots were dealt with very harshly. Nine of the rioters were hanged and a further 450 were transported to Australia.

Later adoption

Early threshing machines were hand-fed and horse-powered. They were small by today's standards and were about the size of an upright piano. Later machines were steam-powered, driven by a portable engine or traction engine. John Ridley, an Anglo-Australian inventor, also developed a threshing machine in South Australia in 1843..

The 1881 Household Cyclopedia said of Meikle's machine:

:"Since the invention of this machine, Mr. Meikle and others have progressively introduced a variety of improvements, all tending to simplify the labor, and to augment the quantity of the work performed. When first erected, though the grain was equally well separated from the straw, yet as the whole of the straw, chaff, and grain, was indiscriminately thrown into a confused heap, the work could only with propriety be considered as half executed. By the addition of rakes, or shakers, and two pairs of fanners, all driven by the same machinery, the different processes of thrashing, shaking, and winnowing are now all at once performed, and the grain immediately prepared for the public market. When it is added, that the quantity of grain gained from the superior powers of the machine is fully equal to a twentieth part of the crop, and that, in some cases, the expense of thrashing and cleaning the grain is considerably less than what was formerly paid for cleaning it alone, the immense saving arising from the invention will at once be seen.

:"The expense of horse labor, from the increased value of the animal and the charge of his keeping, being an object of great importance, it is recommended that, upon all sizable farms, that is to say, where two hundred acres [800,000 m²], or upwards, of grain are sown, the machine should be worked by wind, unless where local circumstances afford the conveniency of water. Where coals are plenty and cheap, steam may be advantageously used for working the machine."

Farming process

Threshing is just one process in getting cereals to the grinding mill and customer. The wheat needs to be grown, cut, stooked (bundled}, hauled, threshed, and then the grain hauled to an elevator and the chaff baled. For many years each of these steps were an individual process, requiring teams of workers and many machines. In the steep hill wheat country of Palouse in the Northwest of the United States, steep ground meant moving machinery around was problematic and prone to rolling. To reduce the amount of work on the sidehills, the idea arose of combining the wheat binder and thresher into one machine--a combined harvester. About 1910, horse pulled combines appeared and became a success. Later, gas and diesel engines appeared with other refinements and specifications.

Modern developments

In Europe and Americas

Modern day combine harvesters (or simply combines) operate on the same principles and use the same components as the original threshing machines built in the 19th century. Combines also perform the reaping operation at the same time. The name combine is derived from the fact that the two steps are combined in a single machine. Also, they are self-powered, usually by a diesel engine, and self-propelled.

Today, as in the 19th century, the threshing begins with a cylinder and concave. The cylinder has serrated bars, and rotates at high speed (about 500 RPM), so that the bars beat against the grain. The concave is curved to match the curve of the cylinder, and serves to hold the grain as it is beaten. The beating releases the grain from the straw and chaff.

Next, the beaten grain is lifted through a set of straw walkers, which carry the large pieces of straw away allowing the grain and chaff to fall below. Below the straw walkers, a fan blows a stream of air across the falling grain, removing dust and fines and blowing them away.

The grain falls into a set of two sieves mounted on an assembly called a shoe. The sieve is shaken mechanically. The top sieve has larger openings, and serves to remove large pieces of chaff from the grain stream. The lower sieve separates clean grain, which falls through, from incompletely threshed pieces. The incompletely threshed grain is returned to the cylinder by means of a system of conveyors, where the process repeats.

Some threshing machines were equipped with a bagger, which invariably held two bags, one being filled, and the other being replaced with an empty. A worker called a sewer removed and replaced the bags, and sewed full bags shut with a needle and thread. Other threshing machines would discharge grain from a conveyor, for bagging by hand. Combines are equipped with a grain tank, which accumulates grain for deposit in a truck or wagon.

A large amount of chaff and straw would accumulate around a threshing machine, and several innovations, such as the air chaffer, were developed to deal with this. Combines generally chop and disperse straw as they move through the field, though the chopping is disabled when the straw is to be baled, and chaff collectors are sometimes used to prevent the dispersal of weed seed throughout a field.

The corn sheller was almost identical in design, with slight modifications to deal with the larger kernel size and presence of cobs. Modern-day combines can be adjusted to work with any grain crop, and many unusual seed crops.

Both the older and modern machines require a good deal of skill to operate. The concave clearance, cylinder speed, fan velocity, sieve sizes, and feeding rate must be adjusted for crop conditions.

Another development in Asia

From the early 20th century, gasoline or diesel-powered threshing machines, designed especially to thresh rice, the most important crop in Asia, have been developed along different lines to the modern combine.

Even after the combine was invented and became popular, a new compact-size thresher called a harvester, with wheels, still remains in use and at present it is available from a Japanese agricultural manufacturer. The compact-size machine is very convenient to handle in small terrace fields in mountain areas where a large machine, such as combine, is not usable.

People there use this harvester with a modern compact binder.

See also

• Agricultural machinery
• Baler
• Binder
• Chaff cutter
• Combine harvester
• Threshing

External links

• Video – Victorian agricultural engine, in steam, driving a threshing machine.
• History of Threshing Machines at the Canada Agriculture Museum