thrash(ing) machine

noun, threshing machine | ‘threshing machine’: hist., a machine for separating grain from the straw or husk (COD)

“They used to have a thrashing machine and a steam engine.”

“There was a lot of work even before the thrashing machines.”

“I remember one time a man was killed in a thrash machine.”

“They could go along and the thrashing machine would come around and would go from one farm to another. I remember getting involved in a thrashing machine supper.”

“My father told me of an accident that took my great uncle’s life up at the Head of the Island in a thrashing machine accident.”

“Usually somebody in the area owned the thrashing machine, and then it went from farm to farm, but then all of the farmers would go and help the next farm.”

“They used to have the steam engine with the thrashing machine up here, and they used to do the Head of Wolfe Island.”

“That old film, yeah … Did you see remember seeing the thrashing machine in it? And Tom’s father’s up in the top feeding the thrashing machine?”

“The thrashing parties are those community events when the thrashing machine came to your farm, and as it moved from farm to farm all the neighbours moved with it.”

“When you thrash, you bring the sheaves of grain in from the field, straw in them, and then the thrashing machine separates the grain out, and then you blow the straw into a big pile.”

“Combines started coming in, and thrashing machines just moved off to the side, and what it took twelve men to do with a thrashing machine maybe one or two men would do with a combine.”

“He had the thrashing machine. And his father before him. And they had a steam engine originally, and then Tom’s dad had a Case tractor and the motor sat in it sideways.”

“They were cut with teams of horses and binders, as they were called. And stook the wheat or oats, whatever they had. And then bring it in and harvest it in the thrashing machines. That was way before the big combines were invented, you see.”

“The farmers we worked for, they stooked and thrashed with a thrashing machine. You had your own team of horses and you had to build your own load, like from the ground. And then you took them in and threw them in to fit into the thrash machine.”

“What does a thrashing machine do?”
“Oh, you know, you pitch the sheaves of grain into it, which in the Western pictures was a steam engine sitting out there, and a big drive belt going to it, and a wagon load of sheaves. And they’re pitching the sheaves in, and the straw’s blowing out one pipe, the thrashed grain’s coming out the other pipe.”