4034. INVENTIONS, Hemp-brake.—
The braking and beating hemp, which has
been always done by hand, is so slow, so laborious,
and so much complained of by our laborers,
that I had given it up and purchased and
manufactured cotton for their shirting. The
advanced price of this, however, makes it a
serious item of expense; and, in the meantime,
a method of removing the difficulty of preparing
hemp occurred to me, so simple and so
cheap, that I return to its culture and manufacture.
To a person having a threshing machine,
the addition of a hemp-brake will not
cost more than twelve or fifteen dollars. You
know that the first mover in that machine is a
horizontal horse-wheel with cogs on its upper
face. On these is placed a wallower and shaft,
which give motion to the threshing apparatus.
On the opposite side of this same wheel I place
another wallower and shaft, through which, and
near its outer end, I pass a cross-arm of sufficient
strength, projecting on each side fifteen
inches in this form:
Nearly under the cross-arm is placed a very
strong hemp-brake, much stronger and heavier
than those for the hand. Its head block particu
larly is massive, and four feet high, and near its
upper end in front, is fixed a strong pin (which
we may call its horn); by this the cross-arm lifts
and lets fall the brake twice in every revolution
of the wallower. * * * Something of this kind
has been so long wanted by the cultivators of
hemp, that as soon as I can speak of its effect
with certainty I shall probably describe it
anonymously in the public papers, in order to
forestall the prevention of its use by some interloping
patentee.—
To George Fleming. Washington ed. vi, 506.
(M.
1815)
