Formerly wheat was grown chiefly in the region of long rainless summers, and the ripened grain was thrown upon uncovered earth floors and threshed by horses driven about over the straw, but this antiquated process was not suited to the climate and enterprise of the more southern provinces, and the modern threshing-machine has been introduced.
The farmer estimates that a threshing-machine can thresh all the wheat ordinarily grown upon 2500 acres, so that a 5000-acre farmer would have at least two machines running at the same time.
The threshing machine knocked out the grain from the ears of corn.
Small's swing plough and Andrew Meikle's threshing-machine, although invented some years before this, were now perfected and brought into general use, to the great furtherance of agriculture.
A little of it is used for fuel for the engines and for bedding the stock; but the bulk of it is dragged away from the threshing machine by machinery, and left lying in great heaps until an opportunity is afforded for burning it up. This is usually done immediately before the ploughing in the autumn.
