Wind of Doctrine Threshing and Winnowing
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Wind of Doctrine Threshing and Winnowing PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:06:53 UTC Contents Articles Threshing 1 Winnowing 2 Threshing floor 4 Chaff 4 Harvest 6 Wheat 7 Epiphany (feeling) 23 References Article Sources and Contributors 25 Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 26 Article Licenses License 27 Threshing 1 Threshing Threshing is the process of loosening the edible part of cereal grain (or other crop) from the scaly, inedible chaff that surrounds it. It is the step in grain preparation after harvesting and before winnowing, which separates the loosened chaff from the grain. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain. Threshing may be done by beating the grain using a flail on a threshing floor. Another traditional method of threshing is to make donkeys or An animal powered thresher oxen walk in circles on the grain on a hard surface. A modern version of this in some areas is to spread the grain on the surface of a country road so the grain may be threshed by the wheels of passing vehicles. However, in developed areas it is now mostly done by machine, usually by a combine harvester, which harvests, threshes, and winnows the grain while it is still in the field. The cereal may be stored in a threshing barn. A Threshing Bee is a festival held in communities to commemorate this process. The event is often held over multiple days and includes flea markets, activity booths, hog wrestling and dances. See also • Threshing floor • Threshing-board • Threshing machine • Winnowing Threshing with hand flails, Great Threshing floor Ludovic Bassarab's Threshing rice by hand Britain, c. 1750. La treierat view in Full HD ("Threshing"), showing peasants in Romanian dress around a combine harvester Winnowing 2 Winnowing Wind winnowing is an agricultural method developed by ancient cultures for separating grain from chaff. It is also used to remove weevils or other pests from stored grain. Threshing, the separation of grain or seeds from the husks and straw, is the step in the chaff-removal process that comes before winnowing. "Winnowing the chaff" is a common expression. In its simplest form it involves throwing the mixture into the air so that the wind blows away the lighter chaff, while the heavier grains fall back down for recovery. Techniques included using a winnowing fan (a shaped basket shaken to raise the chaff) or using a tool (a winnowing fork or shovel) on a pile of harvested grain. In China In Ancient China the method was improved by mechanisation with the development of the rotary winnowing fan, which used a cranked fan to Le vanneur by Jean-François Millet, a19th-century depiction of winnowing by fan produce the airstream.[1] This was featured in Wang Zhen's book the Nong Shu of 1313 AD. In Europe In Saxon settlements such as one identified in Northumberland as Bede's Ad Gefrin [2] (now called Yeavering) the buildings were shown by an excavator's reconstruction to have opposed entries. In barns a draught created by the use of these opposed doorways was used in winnowing [3] . The technique developed by the Chinese was not adopted in Europe until the 1700s, when winnowing machines used a 'sail fan'.[4] The rotary winnowing fan was exported to Europe, brought there by Dutch sailors between 1700 and 1720. Apparently they had obtained them from the Dutch settlement of Batavia in Java, Dutch East Indies. The Swedes imported some from south China at about the same time and Chinese rotary fan winnowing Jesuits had taken several to France from China by 1720. Until the machine, from the Tiangong Kaiwu beginning of the eighteenth century, no rotary winnowing fans existed encyclopedia (1637) by Song in the West.[5] Yingxing In 1737 Andrew Rodger, a farmer on the estate of Cavers in Roxburghshire, developed a winnowing machine for corn, called a 'Fanner'. These were successful and the family sold them throughout Scotland for many years. Some Scottish Presbyterian ministers saw the fanners as sins against God, for wind was a thing specially made by him and an artificial wind was a daring and impious attempt to usurp what belonged to God alone.[6] Winnowing 3 In Greek culture The winnowing-fan (λίκνον [líknon], also meaning a "cradle") featured in the rites accorded Dionysus and in the Eleusinian Mysteries: "it was a simple agricultural implement taken over and mysticised by the religion of Dionysus," Jane Ellen Harrison remarked.[7] Dionysus Liknites ("Dionysus of the winnowing fan") was wakened by the Dionysian women, in this instance called Thyiades, in a cave on Parnassus high above Delphi; the winnowing-fan links the god connected with the mystery religions to the agricultural cycle, but mortal Greek babies too were laid in a winnowing-fan.[8] . In Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus, Adrasteia lays the infant Zeus in a golden líknon, her goat suckles him and he is given honey. In the Odyssey, the dead oracle Teiresias tells Odysseus to walk away from Ithaca with an oar until a wayfarer tells him it is a winnowing fan, and there to build a shrine to Poseidon. In the New Testament In the Gospel according to Matthew 3,12, a sentence introduces the separation of wheat and chaff (good and bad) by "His winnowing fan is in his hand" (American Standard Bible translation). The New International Version translates the term as "winnowing fork". In the United States The development of the winnowing barn allowed rice plantations in South Carolina to increase their yields dramatically. See also • Chaffing and winnowing Use of winnowing forks. • Threshing • Winnowing Oar References [1] The Question of the Transmission of the Rotary Winnowing Fan from China to Europe: Some New Findings (http:/ / www2. tu-berlin. de/ ~china/ deutsch/ abstracts/ Vogel. html), Hans Ulrich Vogel, 8th International Conference on the History of Science in China [2] Münzenberg, Hessen. Chapel and Palas (G.Binding, Burg Münzenberg, 1962) [3] M.W.Thompson, The Rise of the Castle, (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 5-6. [4] Broadcasting and winnowing (http:/ / www. antiquefarmtools. info/ page3. htm), Antique Farm Tools [5] Robert Temple, The Genius of China, p. 24 [6] Chambers, Robert (1885). Domestic Annals of Scotland. Edinburgh : W & R Chambers. p. 397. [7] Harrison, Prolegomean to the Study of Greek Religion, 3rd ed. (1922:159). [8] Karl Kerenyi, Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life (1976:44). Threshing floor 4 Threshing floor A threshing floor is a specially flattened surface made either of rock or beaten earth where a farmer would thresh the grain harvest. The threshing floor was either owned by the entire village or by a single family. It was usually located outside the village in a place exposed to the wind. See also • Winnowing • Threshing Chaff [1] Chaff (pronounced /ˈtʃɑːf/ or English pronunciation: /ˈtʃæf/) is the inedible, 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. In agriculture chaff is used as livestock fodder, or is a waste material ploughed into the soil or burnt. Etymology "Chaff" comes from Middle English chaf, from Old English ceaf; related to Old High German cheva meaning husk. Rice chaff Grain chaff In grasses (including cereals such as rice, barley, oats and wheat), the ripe seed is surrounded by thin, dry, scaly bracts (called glumes, lemmas and paleas), forming a dry husk, the chaff. Domesticated types of grain have been bred to have chaff which is easily removed. For example, in wild species of wheat and in the primitive domesticated einkorn,[2] emmer[3] and spelt[4] wheats, the grains are hulled – the husks enclose each seed tightly. Before the grain can be used, the hulls must be removed by further processing such as milling or Spikelets of a hulled wheat, pounding. In contrast, in free-threshing (or naked) forms such as durum wheat and einkorn common wheat, the glumes are fragile, and on threshing the chaff easily breaks up, releasing the grains. The process of loosening the chaff from the grain is called threshing, and separating the loose chaff from the grain is called winnowing – traditionally done by tossing grain up into lightly blowing wind, dividing it from the lighter chaff, which is blown aside. This process typically utilizes a broad, plate-shaped basket, or similar receptacle for holding and collecting the winnowed grain as it falls back down. Chaff should not be confused with bran, which is finer, scaly material forming part of the grain itself. Chaff 5 Straw chaff Chaff is also made by chopping straw (or sometimes coarse hay) into very short lengths, using a machine called a chaff cutter. Like grain chaff this is used as animal feed, and is a way of turning coarse fodder into a form more palatable to livestock.[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Botany In botany, chaff refers to the thin receptacular bracts of many species in the sunflower family Asteraceae and related families. They are modified scale-like leaves surrounding single florets in the flower-head. Metaphor Chaff as a waste product from grain processing leads to a metaphorical use of the term, to refer to something seen as worthless. This is commonly used in the expression "to separate the wheat from the chaff" from Matthew 3., where it means to separate things of value from things of no value. Another example is in Psalm 1 of the Bible, which says: "Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away".