2-914-044 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Steam-engines and Thrashing-machines, at the Smithfield Club Show, 1854. 'This new display [in the Exhibition of Agricultural Implements and Machinery at King-street Bazaar] proved more forcibly...the great progress that is making in the application of steam to agricultural purposes, and also the improved class of machinery that is being brought into use...Thrashing-machines are being made larger, more elaborate in their details, and necessarily more expensive...they are no longer the noisy, rudely-constructed contrivances of times past, but are now truly fine machines, capable of executing an immense amount of work in a short time. They are mostly capable of thrashing a bushel of wheat per minute - shaking the straw, separating the chaff, and so effectually cleaning the wheat, that, after being afterwards once run through a dressing-machine, it is ready for market...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.