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- No bpt found but it appears he was named for the then current Minister at Dunblane. Michael is said to have invented a rotary threshing machine which for forty years was used to process all the corn on his farm at Gateside, no published works have yet been found but his son William made a sworn statement to his minister to this fact, he also gave him the details of his fathers death in 1796.
An obituary on The Gentlemans Magazine in 1796.
Gentleman's Magazine 1796 [Page 172] Obituary
Michael Stirling.
February 1: At Craighead, in the parish of Dunblane,co. Perth, in his 89th year, Michael Stirling, formerly farmer ay Glassingall, in that parish, where in 1758, he invented a threshing mill, believed to be the first in Scotland, and which from that year to the present, has threshed annually, the whole corn produced on an extensive arable farm.
The Farmers Tools. 'A History of British Farm Implements,Tools & Machinery before the Tractor came': From AD 1500-1900. G E Fussell [1952] Page.154. "The next recorded attempt was made a a Mr Stirling, farmer in the parish of Dunblane,Perthshire. One writer,however, mentions that Mr Moir of Leckie in Stirling invented at abn earlier date a machine on the horizontal flax mill to the scrutchers of which the corn was presented by hand. It headed everything but oats.
Stirling's machine was also on the principal of the flax mill. It had an upright shaft carrying four arms emclosed in a cylinder three & a half feet high by eight feet in diameter within which the shaft & arms were rapidly turned by water wheel. The corn was put in by hand at the top of cylinder and the arms beat out the grain. Both the straw & the grain fell out on the floor where they were separated by riddles & fanners which were also driven by a water wheel. This was ingenious & probably rather effective."
Scottish Country Life. Alexander Fenton. Community Life Section, National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. Published by, John Donald, Publishers Ltd. Edinburgh. 1976. Page 82. Threshing Machine. "A more promising line began to be explored in 1758 whem Mr Stirling of Dunblane, Perthshire, made a water driven machine on the principal of the flaxmill. Mr Moir of Leckie is said to have tried a similar principal about 1764. The mill had four horizontal turning, scuches enclosed in a cylinder three & a half feet high by eight feet in diameter, into the top of which sheaves were led by hand. The grain & straw were separated by riddles & fanners. It worked well enough for oats which have easily detachable ears but not other grains."
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1708 - 1796 (87 years)
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