In the early 1800s, it took an entire family all day to harvest their crop.

Today, the same task takes just seconds for one man in one combine.

Harvesting has come a long way since the days when farmers had to cut down the stalks with a scythe or a cradle – called reaping; separate the kernels from the inedible chaff by beating the cut stalks with a flail –threshing; and separating the kernels from the chaff – winnowing.

All this took a lot of time and a lot of people.

The thrashing machine was first invented by Scottish Mechanical Engineer Andrew Meikle for use in agriculture.

It was devised, around 1786, for the separation of grain from stalks. For thousands of years, grain was separated by hand with flails and was very laborious and time consuming, taking about one-quarter of agricultural labour by the 18th century.

Early threshing machines were hand-fed and horse-powered. They were small by today’s standards and were about the size of an upright piano.

Later machines were steam-powered, driven by a portable engine or traction engine.

In 1834, John Avery and Hiram Abial Pitts devised significant improvements to a machine that automatically threshes and separates grain from chaff, freeing farmers from a slow and laborious process.

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