Fanners

Fanners, a machine employed to winnow grain, driven by hand or by machinery. In passing through the machine the grain is rapidly agitated in a sieve, and as it falls through a strong current of wind, created by a rotatory fan, the chaff is blown out at one end, whilst the cleansed particles fall out at an orifice beneath. The fanners superseded the old and slow process of winnowing, which consisted in throwing up the grain by means of sieves or shovels, while a current of wind, blowing across the thrashing-floor, carried away the chaff. A machine for the winnowing of corn seems for the first time to have been made in Britain by Andrew Rodger, a farmer on the estate of Cavers in Roxburghshire, in the year 1737. Strangely enough, there was a strong opposition to the use of this helpful instrument, the objectors seeing in it an impious evasion of the Divine will. To create an artificial wind was a distinct flying in the face of the text Amos, iv. 13: 'He that formeth the mountains and createth the wind.' See BLOWING-MACHINES.