We sometimes come across reflective accounts of threshing which have been published in old newspapers. Some of them provide personal accounts of being at the work and what it was like. Some provide accounts from a specific perspective, whether a farmer, a woman or a ploughmen.
One such account was published in the Aberdeen press and journal on 13 November 1933. It was contributed by “a correspondent”, presumably a male who was well experienced with working with the mill and was aware of the different threshing practices across the country and from past times. It is worth quoting at length for its insights into threshing from older to modern technologies:
“Threshing at the farm
Primitive flails to modern mills
Great progress in devices
(By a correspondent)
The hum of the threshing mill is breaking the silence of the rural countryside, for many farms have been putting in some hours at the threshing. Already fair quantities of the better conditioned grain of this year’s harvest have gone through the mill.
Threshing is one of the jobs on the farm to which all lend a hand, for very frequently the work is undertaken on those places where inside mills are installed, during wet spells when other outdoor work is at a standstill.
No one about the holding is exempted from the threshing. Horsemen, cattlemen, and halfins all take their turns at forking, feeding, carrying away the sacks of grain to the loft or building, and tramping the “strae”. The women folks, too, when they have some time to spare in the afternoons from their domestic duties, may be numbered among the threshers.
Perhaps no other branch of the agricultural industry has undergone such progressive revolution as has the work of threshing and the devices used.
Era of flails
We are not just so very far removed from the era when the flails were the sole means of extracting the grains from the ears. In fact, there are cases to-day in the Highlands and Islands where flail threshing still survives. Such primitive survivals are, however, rare, for the mechanical thresher has come into universal use, even the smallest farms and crofts having their own equipment.
Previous to the advent of “home” threshing, travelling mills were called in to do the work. The sight of these upon the roads on their way to farms is common to all, as also is the knowledge that in their heyday these travelling threshing outfits did “a roaring trade.” Their day is on the wane, however, for are fewer travelling mills in evidence to-day?
When such were at the height of their activity in days past one never failed to be aware of their presence in any part, for they arranged days with each farm in turn, so that for weeks on end the puffing and grating of the traction driven mill could be heard.
This itinerary from farm to farm is still in practice, but how few are the mills called upon to “go the round” at the present time as compared with even a few years ago.
The demand for the travelling mill began to wane when small, compact and powerful mills, capable to doing heavy work, were put on the market, The installation of these at farms and crofts rapidly took place on a big scale, horse power being used for driving them.
Horse driven mills
Most of us are familiar with the type of threshing mill that is driven from outside by means of along, wooden shaft attached to cog wheels sunk in the ground and revolved by one or more horses according to the size of the mill.
But horse driven mills, too, are vanishing from the countryside. True, there are still some in existence in the more remote parts, but the small, competent motor engine has become so popular as a source of power for mill-driving that yearly fewer and fewer horses are being put to the work.
Now mill and driving engine are housed in the same or adjacent buildings, and farmers can proceed with the work of threshing as their convenience and according to their needs, instead of having to wait for the arrival of a travelling mill, the coming of which was often delayed owing to bad weather holding up the work at other farms.
A study of the past annals of threshing work is absorbing, for the more one ponders over the past and compares it with the present, the more it is realised that the evolution of the threshing machine, from primitive and heavy labour incurring flails to the modern threshing and winnowing devices combined, is one of the most complete and successful that has been brought to bear on agriculture.”
