Threshing Stones, used by the Mennonites of Russia and in few cases in the prairie states and provinces, became the emblem of Bethel College and also of agriculture. The threshing stone is a seven-ribbed cone-shaped stone wheel with a round hole through the horizontal axis. It was about thirty inches long and two feet in diameter. Each six-inch rib is tapered from six inches at the base to two and one-half inches at the outer edge. In Kansas such threshing stones were cut according to a wooden model by a stone quarry near Florence, the model having been prepared by the early Mennonite settlers.

The cut grain was spread in two concentric circles on the threshing floor with the heads of the grain facing each other. The threshing stone was pulled by two horses; the ribbed stone rolling over the heads of the grain knocked the grain and chaff from the straw, after which the grain was fanned. Some of these stones are found in the Kauffman Museum in North Newton, Kansas, and on Kansas Mennonite farmyards.

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, pp. 716-717. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

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