The Wingham Advance-Times, 1985-09-04, Page 351
Onta rio 's s tea m history
The Guelph School of Engineering has
produced historical reviews on the contribu-
tions of pioneers to agricultural systems.
On the occasion of the Centennial of the
Ontario Agricultural ('ollege a short history
of the pioneer Ontario companies concerned
with the threshing of grain was featured:
The research work is primarily that of
Harold S. 'Turner of Goderich, an ardent
oractical historian and early thresher -man.
A threshing machine. sometimes catled a
grain separator, combines three major
functions formerly done by hand -shelling
the grain from the head, separating the
straw from the grain and chaff, and
separating the grain from the chaff.
The first function was originally perform-
ed with a flail, or by treading the grain out
with animals. It was a long winter's chore
performed on the barn floor. It took all day
to flail out seven bushels of wheat or 18
bushels of ,oats. It took another day to
separate the grain from the straw and chaff
by winnowing using a course sieve or riddle
4 or by the use of wooden fork with another
person fanning up a wind with a sheet. The
grain was then bagged.
The fanning mill was the first step toward
the mechanization of the grain cleaning
operation. It was possible to clean one
bushel per minute with one marl turning the
fanning mill, one man feeding it and one
man bagging. With less help. production
went down.
The first threshing machine worthy of the
name was patented by Andrew Meikle in
Scotland about 1786. It had an open peg -
tooth cylinder and a similar set of teeth
which acted as concaves. It was operated by
a one or two horse -power or a tread mill.
Machines of this type were common in
Canada in the 1830's -1840's.
The first patent for an agricultural imple-
rnent in Canada was taken out in 1826 by
Noah Cushing of Quebec for a threshing
machine.
lliram A. Pitts of Winthrop, Maine,,
patented a thresher in 1837 which separated
as well as threshed. The straw passed over
an endless apron. This was the first prac-
tical machine ,and many were built under
license in Canada. The power needed was
about eight ,horse -power. John A. Pitts, a
brother, moved the plant to Buffalo and
many of this type of thresher were imported
under the Buffalo -Pitts company name. A
cleaner was added in 1850. By 1880 the effi-
ciency of threshers had improved to the
point where it was no longer necessary to
pass grain through a fanning mill to sell it.
The, early threshers had no straw car-
riers. Straw elevators saved two men need-
ed -to build the Stack but at an additional
charge to the farmer. The straw stacker
could be swivelled from side to side. Wind
stackers were introduced about 1890. They
rec. ,,d, more power but improved the
wm .1.,; conditions at threshing time.
In :885, for a threshing machine of 750-800
bushels per day capacity, two men were us-
ed to cut the bands op the bundles, two men
fed the bundles, two men measured and bag-
. ed the grain- by 1900 these operations were
all automatic and the mill had double the
capacity of 1885.
Horse power provided the energy needed
to thresh the grain. There were two types of
machine used to convert the ehergy
developed by the animals into motion
suitable for the thresher.
A tread power depended for energy on the
weight of the horses (1 to 4 ► which caused an
endless chain to turn. A brake was released
to start. the tread power moving. A tread
power was much harder on a horse than a
sweep. The sweep power converted the
linear motion of the horse into rotary motion
used to operate the thresher. From one to 14
horses were hitched to the sweep which was
geared through long tumbling rods to
another set of gears at the thresher.
Horsepowers_ could not transmit the
power required to operate larger threshing
mills. Steam power provided the first suc-
cessful mechanical prime mover for
agriculture, The problem was to build a
steam engine cheap enough for the small
farmer. This proved to be impossible andr
the threshin ; of grain became a custom
operation. It vas not really a farm machine.
Portable steam engines hauled by horses
first appeared in England in 1832, and in the
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United States about 1850. These were a sim-
ple form of steam engine of 8 to 14
horsepower ( hp) for belt work. This form of
machine was introduced in Canada in 1869.
As they huffed and puffed at their work they
rocked gently backward and forward under
the impulse of each piston stroke. Wedge
shaped wooden blocks call "chocks" and
cross chains were used against the wheel to
keep it in place..They burned wood or coal.
In spite of the advent of steam many
farmers still liked the horsepower.
The Ontario Legislature enacted legisla-
tion in 1875 to guard against accidents due to
tumbling rods on horsepowers. In 1889 an
Act was also passed requiring spark ar-
resters on steam threshing engines.
The first self propelled steam engine of
note was produced in 1873 by Merritt &
Kellog of Battle Creek, Michigan. It was not
until 1885 before this type of machine
became really popular. The thresher could
finally get rid of that extra team of horses.
The steam engine boom was from 1885 to
1912. The age of steam drew to a close in the
1920's challenged by the more efficient
gasoline tractor. Steam had reached the
peak of its efficiency. but the machines were
still large and heavy, they used a lot of
water, were subject to freezing weather and
frequent boiler inspections. The last new
steam threshing engine built in Ontario was
in 1928 by Robert Bell at Seafortfr-
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