The
thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling,
threshing machine (or simply
thresher), was first invented by
Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in
agriculture. It was devised (c. 1786) for the separation of grain from stalks and husks. For thousands of years, grain was separated by hand with
flails, and was very laborious and time consuming, taking about one-quarter of agricultural labor by the 18th century. Mechanization of this process took much of the drudgery out of farm labour.