Machines for preparing corn for market are amongst the most important inventions of modern times. Here, indeed, agriculture assumes many of the external features of a manufacture. Steam comes prominently into action. In many large farms there is fixed steam-power; and most efficient it is. But the moveable steam-engine comes to the aid of the small farmer; and in some districts that power is let out to those who want it. By this little engine applied to a thrashing-machine, corn is thrashed at once from the rick, instead of being carried into the barn. Here is a representation of the combined steam-engine and thrashing-machine. The thrashing-machine with horse-power is that generally used in England. Rarely, now, can the beautiful description of Cowper be realized:--
"Thump after thump resounds the constant flail, That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls Full on the destined ear."
[Illustration: Moveable steam-engine and thrashing-machine.]
Few now wield that ancient instrument. Nor is the chaff now separated from the corn by the action of the wind, which was called winnowing, but we have the winnowing-machine, by which forty quarters of wheat can be taken from the thrashing-machine and prepared for the market in five hours.
But machinery does not end here. The food of stock is prepared by machines. First, there is the turnip-cutter. Our 'Farmer's Boy' will tell us how his sheep and kine were fed in the winter fifty years ago:--
[Illustration: Thrashing-machine with horse-power.]
"No tender ewe can break her nightly fast, Nor heifer strong begin the cold repast, Till Giles with ponderous beetle foremost go, And scattering splinters fly at every blow; When, pressing round him, eager for the prize, From their mix'd breath warm exhalations rise."
We are told that "lambs fed with a turnip-cutter would be worth more at the end of a winter by eight shillings a head than lambs fed on whole turnips." The chaff-cutter is an instrument equally valuable.
The last machine which we shall mention is connected with the greatest of all improvements in the crop-producing power of British land--the system of tile-draining. Pipes are now made by machinery; and land may be effectually drained at a cost of 4_l._ per acre.