RBC | No, it’s not a fancy wash tub like Ma Kettle washed the clothes and kids in. Terry Mobley tells me that his tub was used to measure a bushel of grain by volume. The traditional wash tub had crimped seam and a flat bottom. Terry says his tub is a galvanized iron basket rounded at the bottom with no seam. It was rounded so that grain would not be trapped in a corner. Galvanizing is a method still used today to keep iron from rusting. Sheets of iron were dipped in molten Zinc. Grain such as wheat, barley, or oats would be shoveled to the measuring tub and leveled off like you would a measuring cup. The tub or basket you see belongs to Terry Mobley and the scale used to weigh it belongs to Mike Sizemore. The two items would be taken to the field early in the harvest to calibrate a device on the old threshing machines. The threshing machine could only measure the weight of the grain passing out the chute as it was loaded into a wagon. If you wanted to know how many bushels (a volume measure) of grain were being produced by the thresher, a conversion was needed. The weight of a bushel varies with which grain and how much moisture is in it that day. The measurement of the bushel and its weight would allow the operator to calibrate the thresher device.
This was important to do if the thresher owner was being paid by the bushel for his work. statements.”
Thanks to Terry Mobley and Mike Sizemore.
