The contraption shown below is an example of the ingenuity employed by farmers in the area to process farm products. This machine simplified the task of separating grain they could sell from the chaff they could not sell.

Animated View: Thresher
This contraption is a portable hand-crank grain thresher. Grain was loaded into the funnel at the top. By turning the crank, a person could use this contraption to separate grain from chaff. (5 images, 5 second delay)