An old engraving of a Garrett ‘English’ threshing machine powered by a Garrett steam engine in the 1800s. It is from a Victorian mechanical of the 1880s. A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of farm equipment that threshes grain, removing the seeds from the stalks and husks. It beats the plant to separate the seeds. Here the seeds are also graded and collected in sacks with markings on them (tail corn, seeds, seconds corn, best corn). Men pile the stalks into haystacks. Richard Garrett & Sons, Leiston, Suffolk, England, UK, was a maker of agricultural machinery and steam engines.
An old engraving of a Garrett ‘English’ threshing machine being powered by a Garrett steam engine in the 1800s. It is from a Victorian mechanical engineering book of the 1880s. A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of farm equipment that threshes grain, that is, it removes the seeds from the stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out. In this illustration the seeds are also graded and collected in sacks with markings on them (tail corn, seeds, seconds corn, best corn). Behind the thresher men pile the corn stalks into haystacks. Before machinery, threshing was done by hand with flails: such hand threshing was very laborious and time-consuming, taking about one-quarter of agricultural labour by the 1700s. Mechanisation of this process removed a substantial amount of drudgery from farm labour. The first threshing machine was invented c. 1786 by the Scottish engineer Andrew Meikle. During the 1800s century, threshers and mechanical reapers and reaper-binders gradually became widespread. Separate functions have largely been replaced by machines that combine all of their functions (combine harvesters or combines). Richard Garrett & Sons was a manufacturer of agricultural machinery and steam engines. Their factory was Leiston Works, in Leiston, Suffolk, England, UK. The company was founded by Richard Garrett in 1778. Richard Garrett III introduced flow line production – a very early assembly line - and constructed a new workshop for the purpose in 1852. This was known as 'The Long Shop' on account of its length. When the machine reached the end of the shop, it would be complete.
Size: 4724px × 2871px
Location: Leiston, Suffolk, England, UK
Photo credit: © M&N / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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