Heritage Harvest
(Page 3 of 4)
July 2008
Loretta Sorensen
Early threshing machines were small and made of wood. Grain was fed into the machine by hand. Grain fell into a bin or bag and straw fell out the rear or was stacked by a small conveyor.
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All threshing machines operate in essentially the same manner. A steel cylinder rotates quickly, separating the grain from the oat stalk. Teeth on the cylinder strike the grain, separating the kernels from the stalk. The straw is carried by straw racks to the end of the machine, where it is blown out onto a stack next to the machine.
Grain falls through openings in the sieves just large enough to allow it to pass through. A fan blows air under the sieves and removes the tiny shells (or chaff) surrounding each kernel. The grain can be used for feed or seed, or can be milled for flour. Threshing machines were also used to separate corn, soybeans, barley, clover and more.
Technology drives improvements
By 1900, threshing machines still contained many wooden parts but numerous improvements had been made. A conveyor, or feeder, in the front of the machine allowed bundles of grain to be pitched in with a fork. As the grain bundle entered the machine, knives cut the twine holding the bundle together.
Once the grain settled to the bottom of the machine, it was brought up to a weigher by an elevator. The weigher consisted of a small, bushel-sized hopper that floated on a pivot and balanced against a counterweight. Once the hopper was filled with grain, the counterweight allowed the hopper to tip and dump the grain into a pipe leading to a wagon or burlap bag on the ground. That allowed the farmer to record the amount of grain harvested.
The blower, a common feature on most vintage machines, was also introduced in the early 1900s. High-speed power blades put the straw through a round duct and into the air, making it possible to stack the straw next to the machine. The blower can (and must) be moved as the straw pile accumulates. If the blower is not moved so it can freely discharge the straw, the machine will plug with straw and will have to be stopped and manually cleaned out.
A typical early 1900s threshing machine was powered by 15-16 horses. Farmers could thresh 500 to 1,000 bushels of wheat per day and twice that many bushels of oats. By the 1920s, wooden threshers were replaced by galvanized steel machines. Steam threshing continued into the 1930s, when gasoline tractors became a more economical source of power.