From the Raleigh Star.
LINCOLN CORN POUNDER.
The usual mode of feeding Indian corn to cattle and hogs, is wasteful in the extreme. The cob is not eaten, and the corn is neither ground nor boiled. It is a well established physiological fact, that the good health of animals requires, that the aliments for the stomach should afford both nutriment and mechanical distention in due proportions. In the usual method of feeding, these proportions do not exist, and besides the nutritious quality is only partially extracted. The grinding of corn is sometimes practised by those who have mills, and boiling by those who have not. Meal is sometimes mixed with hot water and fermented. All these are improvements in feeding, but these are not sufficient. Lately, a mill of cast iron has been invented, which converts both corn and cob into meal, and is used also by tanners in grinding their bark. This improvement is valuable. The cob, while it affords in itself much nutriment, furnishes a degree of distension to the stomach, which is necessary to its proper action. If to this grinding of the cob and grain is superadded fermentation, or boiling, the economical process is nearly complete. I have not time to say what the subject requires in regard to fermentation. Boiling not only renders the articles acted on soluble in the stomach, but it does more—it adds nutriment furnished by the water itself. The experiments of Count Rumford are full and satisfactory on this head. Let those who doubt the nutritive qualities of water be reminded that many kinds of fish live, grow and fatten in pure water, without any other food whatever.—-Every one has seen the gold fish, which have lived for years in globes of pure water, that are sometimes put by the curious into cages of canary birds. Water and air constitute the entire aliment of vegetables, and give them bulk without diminishing at all the quantity of soil in which they grow. The perfection of feeding corn consists in preserving the cob, grinding the whole into meal, and in the cookery. The iron mill is excellent, but too expensive for most farmers. What is wanting, then, is to have the corn, with its cob, powdered by some cheap and simple method, that every one may avail themselves of. Such a one, accident lately made me acquainted with; and I think it is so valuable that I am desirous of seeing it introduced into general use, and shall attempt a description of the machine by which the process was effected.
This machine I saw last summer in operation, on the road between Lincolnton and Morgantown. It was a horizontal shaft with a beater at one end, poised by the weight of water falling into an excavation at the other. The shaft or helve was about fourteen, possibly sixteen feet long. At two thirds of its length from the beater, it rested by a notch across the sharpened edge of a piece of timber lying in a transverse direction, serving as a pivot or fulcrum for the shaft to move on. The beater was a piece of wood two feet, or rather more, in length, fixed by a mortice and tennon to the end of the shaft; its face was about two inches and a half in diameter, and plated with iron. The mortar which received this pestal, or beater, was the hollowed end of a log, wide at top, narrower at bottom, and would contain nearly a bushel. The other, or shorter end of the shaft, was excavated into a trough about three feet long, eight inches wide, and the same in depth. The extreme inner end of the trough formed an angle of ascent from the line of the bottom of about 35 degrees, affording thereby an easy exit to the water when depressed by its weight. This very simple machine, for I have described the whole of it, was placed upon the small run of a spring branch, where there was a descent of about two feet. The water was conveyed into the trough by a spout which approached it at right angles, and the trough was filled and discharged about twice in a minute. Every morning, and again at evening, this mortar was filled with ears of corn, which in twelve hours were found reduced to a very fine meal. It was capable of converting to meal three or four mortars full in a day, but two were sufficient for the use of the plantation, and the mortar was attended to only when it could be done with convenience. In a wet season, when the spring run afforded more water, it moved with increased celerity, and was capable of increased work. The machine was without cover, and I observed barn-door fowls around it, but afraid of the motion of the shaft, they never ventured to purloin from the mortar. The whole expense of this, I think, could not have exceeded four or five dollars.
I know not the inventor of this machine. There were a few others, I was told, in Lincoln and Burke. Its extreme simplicity, cheapness and utility, and the means afforded to almost every one of putting it in motion, ought to recommend it to general use. I am persuaded this method of pounding corn, united to boiling or fermentation, would double the value of crops for feeding. No rule is necessary to be observed with regard to the dimensions, or proportions of the machine. It must duly be noticed that the trough filled with water is heavy enough to raise the bearer; and this can be ascertained, and the proportions duly adjusted by experiment.——If Mr. Henderson think but half as favourably of this machine as I do, he will give the foregoing a place in his useful paper.
CALVIN JONES.
Raleigh, Dec. 20, 1820.