Threshing with a Flail
Photo Credit: Threshing with hand flails
on Flickr, Creative Commons.
He had a house built by 1798 and probably had been girding trees and clearing land for several years. Once enough land was cleared, Garner Rix, like his neighbors gathered the wheat and oats into shocks to dry and wait for winter when there was time for threshing.
The only tool for threshing was the flail. Machines for threshing would not be invented until nearly the middle of the 19th century. Garner Rix probably made his own flail and until the children were old enough to help, Betsy probably helped him.
As we travel back in time to learn more about the early 1800's imagine yourself as a member of Garner Rix's family. Imagine helping to pick the saplings to be made into flails. Imagine the comradery of going out to the barn on a cold winter day to thresh the wheat. Sing a worksong as you keep a steady rhythm and learn where the flour to make your bread comes from.
Come into the barn, pick up a flail and thresh out the skills of an 18th century farmer...
Threshing Out the Table of Contents
Learning about Threshing with a Flail
Once Garner Rix had cleared enough of his land to plant wheat and oats, he needed to have a barn for storing his grains and for threshing the grains to separate the seeds from the straw.
Photo Credit: The Threshing Floor
in the Public Domain
- Farm Tools Through the Ages
- The Threshing Process
- How to Thresh Grain with a Flail
- What is a Threshing Barn?
- Hand Threshing in Tuscany
- The Teamwork of Threshing with Flails
- Glorifying the Days of Threshing by Hand
- Learn more about Living in the 18th Century
- Hands-on Learning Blog
- Look who's Twittering about Threshing
- More Hands-on Learning
- Who's Blogging about Threshing?
- Thanks for Leaving your Thoughts on Threshing...
- About the Author of this Threshing Lens
Farm Tools Through the Ages
Farm Tools Through the Ages was written by Michael Partridge
Photo Credit: Farmer Using a Flail
from The Probert Encyclopaedia of General Information.
A flail is a manual threshing device consisting of a long wooden handle or staff and a shorter, free-swinging stick attached to its end. Garner Rix probably made his own flail to thresh the first small crops grown on his land. Betsey probably helped in this process until they had children old enough to help.
Farm Tools Through the Ages
Amazon Price: (as of 12/31/2009)
The Threshing Process
How to Thresh
Threshing Corn, Illustration from a School Textbook "Enseignement Par Les Yeux"
Buy at AllPosters.com
- Review of Farm Tools through the Ages by Michael Partridge
- The techniques of farming
We can be grateful for author, Michael Partridge's early interest in the techniques of farming, for it has led to a most readable and informative book.
'Farm Tools Through the Ages' does exactly what its name indicates it takes a look at implements used by farmers down through the ages.
The book is arranged under 10 headings; land drainage, cultivating the soil, steam cultivation, sowing and planting, harvesting crops, ... - Threshing
- Threshing or thrashing, separation of grain from the stalk on which it grows and from the chaff or pod that covers it.
The first known method was by striking the reaped ears of grain with a flail. In another early method horses or oxen trod out the grain from stalks spread on a threshing floor.
In both cases the straw was raked away and then the mixture of grain and chaff was winnowed, i.e., tossed into or poured through a current of air so that the light chaff was blown away from the heavier grain.
In 1784 a Scotsman, Andrew Meikle, devised a threshing machine.
Sheaves of grain were fed into a revolving cylinder armed with wooden beaters. Another toothed drum raked away the loose straw and pushed the remaining chaff and grain through a sieve onto a series of rollers that further separated the chaff from the grain in preparation for winnowing.
The principle of Meikle's machine has been retained in all threshing machines up to and including the modern self-propelled combines .
Bibliography: See M. Partridge, Farm Tools through the Ages (1973).
"threshing." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. (August 31, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-threshin.html
...
What is a Threshing Barn?
Learn about Threshing in the 18th Century
This video explains the special characteristics that make an English Barn ideal for threshing. About 2/3 of the way through there is a demonstration of how to thresh by hand using a flail. This is the way grains were threshed until at least the late 1800's once threshing machines had been invented and became prevalent.
Hand Threshing in Tuscany
A Celcbration of Threshing in Italy
Listen to the way the rhythm of the music provides a beat for the man in the background who is threshing wheat. People who performed repetitive tasks like threshing often made up songs pass the time. These became known as worksongs.
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The Teamwork of Threshing with Flails
Worksongs for Threshing
Old Threshing Song
One of the rare songs in praise of a machine;<br />
in the mid-1860's there were riots in Sussex in opposition<br />
to the new threshing machines.1 point
Velitchkina notes on Russian panpipe playing
In threshing, for example, there were special techniques used to change the arm holding the flail without stopping the team work. In one of them the...1 point
Glorifying the Days of Threshing by Hand
Rhymes of Vermont Rural Life
Amazon Price: (as of 12/31/2009)
Learn more about Living in the 18th Century
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Old Vermont Barn
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The old barn on our farm in Vermont was built by my Great-great grandfather in about 1870. He learned to build from his father and grandfather in a tradition passed down from the first New England settlers. He took those traditions but he applied new...
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Garner Rix and the Royalton Raid - 1780
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Garner Rix was just 12 when he moved with his father, pregnant mother, two sisters and three brothers from a farm in Connecticut to a log cabin on the banks of the White River, a place that would one day be called Royalton, Vermont. He helped h...
Hands-on Learning Blog
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byLook who's Twittering about Threshing
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- Cinnell
- I am so excited about what 2010 will bring. Has to be better than 2009, well unless I get involved in a fatal threshing machine accident.
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- DocPammyDC
- Yay!RT @AuthoressAnon: FINISHED! One piping hot third draft, YA Dystopian, 73K, ready for the threshing floor! *dances, squeals, feasts *
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- AuthoressAnon
- FINISHED! One piping hot third draft, YA Dystopian, 73K, ready for the threshing floor! *dances, squeals, feasts on buttered popcorn*
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- rebekahfinfrock
- RT @geoffashley "let your fleece lie on the threshing-floor of supplication till it is wet with the dew of heaven" (spurgeon on prayer).
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- SunnyGrover
- RT @geoffashley: "let your fleece lie on the threshing-floor of supplication till it is wet with the dew of heaven" (spurgeon on prayer).
automatically generated by Twitter
More Hands-on Learning
Who's Blogging about Threshing?
- Author takes readers inside his life
- Lots and lots of stories, about bee stings and cow pies, a flood, planting and threshing, marbles, jackknives, snake oil shows, pin-setting, ...
Thanks for Leaving your Thoughts on Threshing...
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- momto4 momto4 Sep 9, 2009 @ 11:03 am
- Great lens! I've learned something new today! Love your pictures!
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- mysticmama mysticmama Sep 8, 2009 @ 3:18 pm
- Wow, great topic!
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- seashell2 seashell2 Sep 6, 2009 @ 1:26 pm
- Great job, Evelyn!
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- Sylvestermouse Sylvestermouse Sep 5, 2009 @ 12:10 am
- Great Lens! I like the pictures you used.
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- bdkz bdkz Sep 4, 2009 @ 8:42 pm
- Super lens!
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About the Author of this Threshing Lens
When I'm not threshing out the process of 18th century farming I'm...-
Evelyn Saenz: Lensography of a Teacher
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My passion is teaching and finding ways to teach children in fun, hands-on, creative ways. The unit studies I make on Squidoo reflect my view that learning should be integrated and no skills should be taught in isolation. I believe that each topic s...
by Evelyn_Saenz
My passion is teaching and finding ways to teach children in fun, hands-on, creative ways. The unit studies I make on Squidoo reflect my view that lea... (more)
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