DOI issue:
Vol. VI : 2 1989
DOI article:Sigaut, François: Storage and threshing in preindustrial Europe: additional notes
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49003#0125
STORAGE AND THRESHING IN PREINDUSTRIAL EUROPE:
ADDITIONAL NOTES
By
Francois Sigaut
In the overall picture of grain storage tech-
niques I proposed in my paper in Tools and
Tillage 1988, VI:1, some facts were missing,
either because I overlooked them, or because
I was not aware of them at the time of writ-
ing. Here are a few of them, with the com-
ments I have felt induced to make.
1. Storage of grain with chaff
Owing to often incomplete descriptions, the
importance of grain with chaff as a stored
item may well be quite underestimated. An
interesting example turns up in Thomas Jef-
ferson’s agricultural papers (Betts 1944,1953),
to which the editor has added an account by
the due de La Rochefoucault-Liancourt of a
visit he paid to Jefferson at Monticello in June
1796.
In the country south of the Potomac river,
east of the the Blue Mountains, USA, La Ro-
chefoucault-Liancourt writes, wheat is ex-
posed to a peculiar scourge a “worm” (insect)
by which the harvest may be entirely de-
stroyed if left unthreshed. Since, on the other
hand, the grain would rot and spoil if stored
in bulk, the only way left is to keep it mixed
with chaff, and to put off the winnowing un-
til it is to be sent to the mill or to the market.
Here is how La Rochefoucault-Liancourt ex-
plains this mode of storage:
“... the heat occasioned by the mixture of
grain with its envelope, from which it is dis-
engaged, but with which it continues mixed,
destroys the vital principle of the egg, and
protects the corn from the inconveniencies of
its being hatched” (Betts 1944:243).
By modern standards, of course, this explana-
tion explains nothing. But our information is
too slight to enable us to go further. We do
not even know what species of insect was re-
sponsible: Jefferson alludes to the Hessian fly
and to “weavils”, but in other contexts. The
only certain thing is that wheat had to be kept
in store threshed, but not winnowed. When
he had a Scotch threshing machine installed at
Monticello in 1796, a few weeks after La Ro-
chefoucault-Liancourt’s visit, Jefferson was
careful to have the fanners removed, so that
the grain could be threshed without being
winnowed (Betts 1944:546, et 1953: 70, 201,
314). Prior to the coming of the threshing ma-
chine to Virginia, wheat was trodden out with
horses.
2. Threshing by horse-treading, indoors
As I have tried to show in my paper, and as
confirmed by the Virginian example, harvest-
ing, threshing, winnowing and storage tech-
niques are usually connected with each other,
so much so indeed that it is virtually impos-
sible to understand them separately. That is
the reason why I proposed to identify several
harvest-to-storage “systems” in preindustrial
Europe.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
By
Francois Sigaut
In the overall picture of grain storage tech-
niques I proposed in my paper in Tools and
Tillage 1988, VI:1, some facts were missing,
either because I overlooked them, or because
I was not aware of them at the time of writ-
ing. Here are a few of them, with the com-
ments I have felt induced to make.
1. Storage of grain with chaff
Owing to often incomplete descriptions, the
importance of grain with chaff as a stored
item may well be quite underestimated. An
interesting example turns up in Thomas Jef-
ferson’s agricultural papers (Betts 1944,1953),
to which the editor has added an account by
the due de La Rochefoucault-Liancourt of a
visit he paid to Jefferson at Monticello in June
1796.
In the country south of the Potomac river,
east of the the Blue Mountains, USA, La Ro-
chefoucault-Liancourt writes, wheat is ex-
posed to a peculiar scourge a “worm” (insect)
by which the harvest may be entirely de-
stroyed if left unthreshed. Since, on the other
hand, the grain would rot and spoil if stored
in bulk, the only way left is to keep it mixed
with chaff, and to put off the winnowing un-
til it is to be sent to the mill or to the market.
Here is how La Rochefoucault-Liancourt ex-
plains this mode of storage:
“... the heat occasioned by the mixture of
grain with its envelope, from which it is dis-
engaged, but with which it continues mixed,
destroys the vital principle of the egg, and
protects the corn from the inconveniencies of
its being hatched” (Betts 1944:243).
By modern standards, of course, this explana-
tion explains nothing. But our information is
too slight to enable us to go further. We do
not even know what species of insect was re-
sponsible: Jefferson alludes to the Hessian fly
and to “weavils”, but in other contexts. The
only certain thing is that wheat had to be kept
in store threshed, but not winnowed. When
he had a Scotch threshing machine installed at
Monticello in 1796, a few weeks after La Ro-
chefoucault-Liancourt’s visit, Jefferson was
careful to have the fanners removed, so that
the grain could be threshed without being
winnowed (Betts 1944:546, et 1953: 70, 201,
314). Prior to the coming of the threshing ma-
chine to Virginia, wheat was trodden out with
horses.
2. Threshing by horse-treading, indoors
As I have tried to show in my paper, and as
confirmed by the Virginian example, harvest-
ing, threshing, winnowing and storage tech-
niques are usually connected with each other,
so much so indeed that it is virtually impos-
sible to understand them separately. That is
the reason why I proposed to identify several
harvest-to-storage “systems” in preindustrial
Europe.