Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/693

 INTERIOR FINISHING OF FARMERIES. 669 are those at the farmery of Bagshot Park, Berksliire ; and at Wynnstay, Flintshire. The former has been figured and described in the Appendix to the second edition of our Etiaj. of Agr. It cleans the corn most completely, having a chain of buckets for bring- ing up, to pass a second time through the mill, the short stalks and imperfectly threshed ears, which are delivered into these buckets by the wiiniowing-machine. There is also a travelling sheet or corn elevator, fixed at an angle of about thirty degrees, with laths of wood across it at regular distances, which acts as buckets in carrying up the corn from the lower winnowing-machine to the upper one, to be passed through a second time. I'here is a power of throwing, not only any part of the machinery out of gear, but even of reversing the motion of any part. There is a pair of French bun--stones for grinding meal, a turnip-slicer, a straw-cutter, and a bone-crusher ; besides which, there are arrangements and room for adding any other machine that might be required. This machine was executed under the direction of Mr. Burns, the Duke of Gloucester's most ingenious bailiff, by a local millwright. The machine at Wynnstay was erected by the late Mr. John Gladstone of Castle Douglas (the ingenious inventor of several agricul- tural implements and machines), about the year 1812 ; and complete plans and descrip- tions of it were furnished to us, in 1830, by his nephew, Mr. John Gladstone, engineer to the Chester leadworks ; a young man of great modesty and ingenuity. The site of the Wynnstay mill is on a declivity, and the barn has three floors. The upper one opens into the stack-yard, being on a level with its surface; the second floor contains the first winnowing-machine, with a chaft'-house, which descends to the floor below, and has one door into the straw-house and another into the cattle-yard. When the corn is only wanted to pass through the first winnowing-machine, the corn elevators and the second winnowing-machine are thrown out of gear, and the corn is delivered on the second floor. Here a bruising-machine is fixed. The under floor contains the second winnowing-machine, with the lower end of the corn elevators. The corn may be deli- vered on this floor, instead of into the trough of the elevator, by throwing the latter out of gear. The elevator trough conveys the corn to a room on the upper floor, which serves as a granary, and there throws it into a weighing-machine, which is connected with an index in the barn, placed on the partition wall facing the man at the feeding- table, and consequently showing him the quantity of corn threshed. The chaff and short straws from the first winnowing-machine are elevated to the feeding-board by a chain of buckets, as in the threshing-mill at Bagshot (which appears to be, to a certain extent, an imitation of the Wynnstay machine), and passed through the machinery a second time. This chain of buckets is a very useful appendage to a threshing-machine, as it takes from the winnowing-machine all the refuse which generally accumulates on the cleaning-floor, and, by passing it through the machinery a second time, separates it into corn and chaff. The water-wheel is in a house beside the barn. In a room above the wheel is a Scotch barley-mill, and, beyond that, a very complete saw-mill ; both driven by the same wheel, and both easily turned out of gear when the threshing- machine is at work. In the middle floor is an oat-bi-uiser and a straw-cutter ; and there is every convenience for adding such other machines as may at any time be considered desirable. We have noticed what is effected by these two machines, to show that, when once steam shall be generally applied in farmeries, the labour both of men and horses will be diminished in an almost incredible degree. By applying the steam-engine to the plough and other instruments of aration, and to reaping and mowing implements, very few horses would be wanted, even on the largest farms. The good that will result from such a change will be immense ; even the superior degree of intelligence requisite to put up, to work, and to repair steam-engines, will in a short time have an influence on the condition of the farm labourer, and approximate him more nearly in intellect to the mechanic. The result will also benefit the quadrupeds and fowls kept on a farm ; for, as soon as farmers become familiarised with steam, we are persuaded they will have all the straw, not to be used as thatch, cut into chaff, and all farm-yard food whatever cooked, either by steam or hot water, before being given to the animals. This will not take place without carrying with it the heating of the cottagers' floors by steam. 1400. A Saw-mill is a most valuable machine, wherever there is much timber to be cut, and, in all new countries, may be considered not less essential than the limekiln or brick-kiln. Any building ten or twelve feet wide, twenty or thirty feet long, and open at one end, so as to admit long trees, may be adapted for a saw-mill, by excavating a trough in the floor for the action of the saw. 1401. Portable Threshing-machines, to be worked by horses, commonly thresh only, without cleaning the corn ; and therefore they require no particular modification of the barn. There is an excellent cast-iron macliine of this description, invented by Mr. Baird of the Shotts ironworks ; and there are some in England which are impelled by steam, and employed to thresh out a crop in the fields, on a movable floor, under a temporary roof, a few weeks after the crop has been cut ; the straw being in that case