Threshing stone

Last updated October 01, 2019

A threshing stone is a roller-like tool used for the threshing of wheat. Similar to the use of threshing boards, the stone was pulled by horses over a circular pile of harvested wheat on a hardened dirt surface (threshing floor), and the rolling stone knocked the grain from the head of wheat. The straw was removed from the pile and the remaining grain and chaff was collected. By a process called winnowing, the grain was tossed into the air to allow the chaff and dirt to be blown away, leaving only the grain.^[1]

The roller is an agricultural tool used for flattening land or breaking up large clumps of soil, especially after ploughing or disc harrowing. Typically, rollers are pulled by tractors or, prior to mechanisation, a team of animals such as horses or oxen. As well as for agricultural purposes, rollers are used on cricket pitches and residential lawn areas.

Threshing is the process of loosening the edible part of grain from the chaff to which it is attached. It is the step in grain preparation after reaping. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain.

Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain which is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus Triticum; the most widely grown is common wheat.

History

Evidence of the use of threshing stones in various forms date from the Roman era, but eventually it became the method of threshing grain by the Molotschna Mennonite farmers in the Ukraine from about 1840 to 1900. The threshing stone became the preferred method used to knock the grain from the head because it was less labor-intensive than the use of the traditional threshing flail.^[2]

In historiography, ancient Rome is Roman civilization from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, encompassing the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire. The civilization began as an Italic settlement in the Italian Peninsula, conventionally founded in 753 BC, that grew into the city of Rome and which subsequently gave its name to the empire over which it ruled and to the widespread civilisation the empire developed. The Roman Empire expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world, though still ruled from the city, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants ) and covering 5.0 million square kilometres at its height in AD 117.

Molotschna Colony or Molochna Colony was a Russian Mennonite settlement in what is now Zaporizhia Oblast in Ukraine. Today the central village is called Molochansk and it has a population of under 10,000. The settlement is named after the Molochna River which forms its western boundary. Today the land falls mostly within the Tokmatskyi and Chernihivskyi Raions. The nearest large city is Melitopol to the southwest of Molochansk.

Ukraine, sometimes called the Ukraine, is a country in Eastern Europe. Excluding Crimea, Ukraine has a population of about 42 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Kiev. Ukrainian is the official language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy. Ukraine is currently in a territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km² (233,062 sq mi), making it the largest country entirely within Europe and the 46th largest country in the world.

In the 1870s, approximately one-third of all Russian Mennonites immigrated to the Great Plains of North America. The immigrants in central Kansas brought the threshing stone technology with them, and contracted stone masons in the Florence, Kansas area to construct stones made of limestone.^[2]

The Russian Mennonites are a group of Mennonites who are descendants of Dutch Anabaptists who settled for about 250 years in West Prussia and established colonies in the Russian Empire beginning in 1789. Since the late 19th century, many of them have come to countries throughout the Western Hemisphere. The rest were forcibly relocated, so that very few of their descendants now live at the location of the original colonies. Russian Mennonites are traditionally multilingual with Plautdietsch as their first language and lingua franca. In 2014 there are several hundred thousand Russian Mennonites: about 200,000 in Germany, 100,000 in Mexico, 70,000 in Bolivia, 40,000 in Paraguay, 10,000 in Belize and tens of thousands in Canada and the US and a few thousand in Argentina, Uruguay, Belize, and Brazil.

The Great Plains is a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland, located in America and Canada. It lies west of the Mississippi River tallgrass prairie in the United States and east of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. and Canada. It embraces:

Kansas is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita, with its most populated county being Johnson County. Kansas is bordered by Nebraska on the north; Missouri on the east; Oklahoma on the south; and Colorado on the west. Kansas is named after the Kansas River, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native Americans who lived along its banks. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the (south) wind" although this was probably not the term's original meaning. For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the western part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison.

The use of threshing stones quickly faded as they were superseded by mechanized forms of threshing, especially by threshing machines, and eventually all farmers quit using them by around 1900 to 1905.^[2]

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.

Physical description

The threshing stone is a cylindrical stone with teeth carved into it. Stones made in Kansas were approximately 29 to 30 inches long, 23 to 24 inches in diameter, with 7 notches (and rarely 8) resembling gear teeth, made of limestone, and 600 to 800 pounds in weight.^[2]^[1] Some smaller stones may weigh less than 400 pounds.^[3]

A gear or cogwheel is a rotating machine part having cut teeth or, in the case of a cogwheel, inserted teeth, which mesh with another toothed part to transmit torque. Geared devices can change the speed, torque, and direction of a power source. Gears almost always produce a change in torque, creating a mechanical advantage, through their gear ratio, and thus may be considered a simple machine. The teeth on the two meshing gears all have the same shape. Two or more meshing gears, working in a sequence, are called a gear train or a transmission. A gear can mesh with a linear toothed part, called a rack, producing translation instead of rotation.

Limestone Sedimentary rocks made of calcium carbonate

Limestone is a carbonate sedimentary rock that is often composed of the skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, foraminifera, and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). A closely related rock is dolomite, which contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, CaMg(CO₃)₂. In old USGS publications, dolomite was referred to as magnesian limestone, a term now reserved for magnesium-deficient dolomites or magnesium-rich limestones.

Locations

In 2011, over 90 threshing stones have been located. Numerous stones in Kansas are located at private residences as family historic artifacts.^[4] The following is a list of locations where threshing stones may be viewed by the public.

Museums:

4 at Zmeinogorsk Museum of Mining in Zmeinogorsk (Russia).
3 at Mennonite Heritage and Agricultural Museum in Goessel, Kansas.
3 at Mennonite Settlement Museum in Hillsboro, Kansas.
2 at Kauffman Museum at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas.
2 at Inman Museum in Inman, Kansas.^[3]
2 at Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada.
1 at Halstead Heritage Museum in Halstead, Kansas.
1 at McPherson Museum in McPherson, Kansas.
1 at Kansas Museum of History in Topeka, Kansas.
1 at American Historical Society of Germans from Russia in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Various:

4 at Buhler High School in Buhler, Kansas.
2 at Administration Building and Bookstore at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas.
1 at Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church near Goessel, Kansas.
1 in Mennonite Centennial Memorial Monument in Peabody, Kansas.

Other uses

The Thresher is the official mascot of Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas and named after the threshing stone.^[5]

Related Research Articles

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Chaff is the dry, scaly protective casings of the seeds of cereal grain, or similar fine, dry, scaly plant material such as scaly parts of flowers, or finely chopped straw. Chaff is indigestible by humans, but livestock can eat it and in agriculture it is used as livestock fodder, or is a waste material ploughed into the soil or burned.

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References

1 2 "Kauffman Museum - Researching Threshing Stones". Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
1 2 3 4 "The Threshing Stone". 21 February 2014. Archived from the original on 21 February 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2017.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
1 2 "Flyover People Daily News » Threshing stone". www.flyoverpeople.net. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
↑ "The Threshing Stone". 10 January 2014. Archived from the original on 10 January 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2017.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
↑ "Fast Facts about Bethel College". Bethel College, KS. Retrieved 28 May 2017.

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[Kauffman-Research-1] 1 2 "Kauffman Museum - Researching Threshing Stones". Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 28 May 2017.

[TheshingStone-History-2] 1 2 3 4 "The Threshing Stone". 21 February 2014. Archived from the original on 21 February 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2017.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)

[InmanMuseum-3] 1 2 "Flyover People Daily News » Threshing stone". www.flyoverpeople.net. Retrieved 28 May 2017.

[4] "The Threshing Stone". 10 January 2014. Archived from the original on 10 January 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2017.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)

[Bethel-Thresher-5] "Fast Facts about Bethel College". Bethel College, KS. Retrieved 28 May 2017.