Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1876 — Threshing and Cleaning Wheat. [ARTICLE]

Threshing and Cleaning Wheat.

Good clean wheat without cracked or cut kernels in it will always sell more readily and at a better price, than wheat foul with weeds, seeds and chart' and full of cut or bruised grain. Threshers are apt to manage in a way to secure their own interests, rather than that of the owner of the grain, by rushing the work, so as to put through a large amount of grain and increase the average profits for their labor. The farmer who has raised a good crop of plump wheat has only himself to blame if he allays the threshing machine to do the work 'in an unworkmanlike manner. The most of the threshing is done by men who own the machines, and go about from farm to farm threshing by the bushel so that the

more grain that is put through the machine In a day the greater will be the profits, and are apt to act on this principle by crowding their machines to their greatest capacity. With careful management on the part of the machine men, a great saving may be made to the farmer, and satisfactory results to themselves; for, with the improved machinery, which has been brought almost to perfection during the last rew years, the work may be done well and rapidly enough to satisfy the ambition of the thresher, or the economizing spirit of the farmer. As the machine brings with it a large gang of men and horses to pay and feed, the fanner nature ally feels some as the owner of the machine does, that he would like to get through with the job as soon as possible. 8o while the hurry may be on both sides, the loss from the slighted work, all comes off of the farmer. Grain may be and often is wasted in the cutting and handling, but ’ the greater waste is in the single operation of threshing, often without anybody’s knowing it, or stopping to tli ink about it. jbisist on saving all the grain possible, and have the work well done. Barring the danger of fire, steam is the most economical power for threshing purposes, giving a more steady speed to- the machine, so if the grain is fed tlirough at an even rate, there Is no danger of the grain being blown through with the chaff, at the moments of high speed. Besides, it is decided cruelty to animals, to press horses into a succession of full days’ work running the threshing machine during mid-summer, while the days are long, the heat oppressive and the flies inflict their severest punishment. Give the horses all the protection they can have from the flies, and the machinery will be less liable to be broken and the grain wasted by an irregular motion. As the straw has now become a matter of great importance, it should be put upon the stack over the carrier. In this way the chaff and whatever grain which would otherwise be wasted, by being left-scat-tered upon the ground on account of its fineness, the pitchers not being able to put it upon the stack with the use of their forks, would be saved. Ordinarily we think it economy to put the grain in the stack during a sufficient time for it to go through a “sweat” before threshing, for no doubt it improves the quality and condition of the grain to some extent, will require less help on threshing days, and the delay will be in favor of the straw while it is not exposed to the summer rains. Of course, when the farmer is compelled to sell soon after harvest, he had better thresh out of the shock, and for no other reason would we advise threshing grain before or during the “dog days.”— Western Rural. —The Reading (Pa.) Times says a party of young men were exercising upon a slack-rope in the shed of the Seltzer House, at Womelsdorf, when one of them, named Albert Rine, aged twenty-four years, and weighing 175 pounds, attempted to hold his weight on the rope by his teeth. He took a firm hold with his mouth, and let go with his hands, when he dropped with a jerk, breaking his lower jaw-bone on both sides and tearing out six teeth w'ilh the bone. There are 70,000 children living on boats in England, who receive no education.