Current Location:
Collection Storage Facility
Provenance:
Purchase in 1982
History:
J. B. Doré & Frère began producing agricultural machinery in La Prairie, Quebec, in the mid nineteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the company had become E. Doré & Fils and was also producing mining equipment, as well as threshers and other agricultural implements.
Technical History:
Threshing machines separate grain from the harvested plant, which is reduced to straw and chaff. The first threshing machines were stationary: powered by hand or treadmill, they increased the amount of grain a farmer could separate in a day. Wheeled threshing machines began to replace stationary threshers in the 1860s and further mechanized grain harvesting. Threshers were initially built of wood and powered by horse-powered windlasses; they were later built of steel and powered by steam traction engines and gas tractors. Threshers were in turn replaced through the twentieth century by combine harvesters, which merged harvesting and threshing operations in one machine.
This stationary thresher is equipped with a vibrating riddle, technology that supplanted endless aprons in the late 1880s. Mounted on skids, this thresher has a 28-inch cylinder that would have been powered by horse power or treadmill. Stationary threshers were commonly made by eastern Canadian manufacturers to satisfy local markets and smaller farms, which could not afford the larger wheeled threshers that were then on the market.
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