Early Attempts to Harvest with Machines.
The beginning of practical efforts in the direction of harvesting by wholly mechanical means may be said to date from the beginning of the last century, about the year 1800, although very little progress was made from that time up to the year 1831.
It is true that the Gauls made use of an instrument nearly two thousand years before, but this contrivance fell into disuse with the decline of the Gallic fields. Pliny describes this machine which was used early in the first century and which might be termed a stripping header. Palladius, four centuries later, describes the same sort of machine. This device of the Gauls had lance-shaped knives, or teeth with sharpened sides, projecting from a bar, like guard teeth, but set close together to form a sort of comb. As it was pushed forward, the stalks next the heads came between these sharp teeth and were cut or stripped off into a box attached to and behind the cutter bar and carried by two wheels. When the box was filled with heads, the machine was driven in and emptied. This is the way in which it is supposed that it was worked, and the illustration is the generally accepted representation of it as roughly reconstructed from the old Latin description of Pliny.
The Mowing Machine has Replaced the Scythe for Cutting Hay, and the Kerosene Tractor has Replaced Expensive Horse Power for Pulling the Mowers
The tractor has 10 H. P. on the drawbar and is pulling three mowers, laying down a swath of hay 21 feet wide.
Near the close of the past century, the subject of grain-reaping machines again began to claim the attention of inventors. In July, 1799, the first English patent was granted to Joseph Boyce. In 1806, Gladstone of England built and patented a machine which not only attempted to cut the grain, but also to deliver it in gavels to be bound. In 1807, Plucknett and Salmon both patented machines. In 1811, Smith and Kerr took out patents. In 1822, Henry Ogle, a schoolmaster of Rennington, assisted by Thomas and Joseph Brown, invented the so-called Ogle reaper. The next, and last, reaper of this period was invented by Patrick Bell of Carmyllie, Scotland, in 1826.
Nearly all of these early reapers relied upon scythes or cutters with a rotary motion or vibrating shears. This method of cutting was essentially wrong, and none of the machines ever appeared to have gained or long retained the favor of the farmers. That these early attempts were all unsuccessful is evidenced by the fact that at the great World’s Fair in London in 1851, the United Kingdom could not present a single reaping machine. English journals and writers of that period, without a single exception, spoke of the American reapers which were exhibited as “completely successful.” For the real progress towards solving the problem of harvesting grain with machines we must turn to America.
The McCormick Reaper of 1845
American invention in this line, so far as there is any record, began with the patent issued to Richard French and T. J. Hawkins of New Jersey, May 17, 1803. No reliable description of this machine seems to be extant. Five patents of no importance were issued between that time and 1822, when Bailey took out a patent. Cope and Cooper of Pennsylvania obtained a patent in 1826, and Manning obtained one in 1831.
A Corn Binder Cuts the Heaviest Corn with Ease
Up to 1831, no successful and practical reaper had been developed. With all the patents taken out in England, and with those taken out in America from 1803 down to 1831, we might say that nothing had been accomplished toward perfecting a reaping machine which actually worked successfully.
A View of the First McCormick Reaper of 1831 as Used in the Field