Agricultural operations are now conducted on such a vast scale that the single plow cannot begin to do the necessary work. Instead, sets of gang plows are used so that from a dozen to two dozen furrows may be turned at a time. Steam or gasoline tractors of the wheel or track-laying type are required to furnish the tractive effort needed to haul these huge plows. The larger tractors are so powerful that they haul not only the plow but a harrow behind the plow to break up the clods and a seeder behind the harrow to sow and cover the seed so that all three operations are performed simultaneously.
The disk type of plow is used in very dry and hard soil and also in very sticky soil. A rolling disk takes the place of the moldboard and share, and in this way friction is reduced very materially, with the result that less tractive effort is required to draw the machine.
There is scarcely any agricultural operation for which a machine has not been designed. We cannot attempt to describe them all. For tilling the soil there are plows, harrows, drags, and rollers of many different varieties; for seeding and planting there are grain and seed drills, corn planters, potato planters, etc.; for cultivating or working the growing crops there are cultivators, weeders, fertilizer drills, corn plows, etc.; and for harvesting or gathering the crops there are mowers, hay rakes and tedders, reapers and binders, potato diggers, corn binders and huskers, corn shellers, etc.
INVENTION OF THE REAPER
Most interesting of all are the reapers because they represent the first successful efforts to introduce machinery into farming operations. Toward the close of the eighteenth century the Royal Agricultural Society of England offered a prize for the invention of a successful reaper, which stimulated inventive effort in this field. But although many patents on reaping machines were granted by the British patent office, nothing was produced that completely met the requirements. In fact even as late as 1851 when a World’s Fair was held in London the British had no really successful reaper to exhibit. In the meantime, American inventors had been at work and two inventors in particular, Obed Hussey of Maryland and Cyrus McCormick of Virginia, had developed machines which had so far proved their worth that they were extensively used on American farms. These two inventors, working independently, produced machines that were very similar in basic principles. As our patent regulations of that period did not call for an extensive search of the prior art there was no official investigation to show which was entitled to the honor of priority of basic principles or whether both did not include in their applications much that was old. Hussey filed his patent on the last day of 1833 and McCormick in June of 1834.
The main stumblingblocks of earlier inventors of reaping and mowing machines was in finding a suitable method of cutting the grain. Revolving combs for tearing off the heads of grain, fingers for gathering the grain and holding it against a revolving cutter, horizontally reciprocating knives—all these methods were tried without success. Nearly three years before Hussey obtained his patent, Manning, of Plainfield, New Jersey, solved the problem by inventing a reciprocating cutter with spear-shaped blades cooperating with a finger bar that guided and held the grain against the blades. This invention was apparently unknown to either Hussey or McCormick and their patents show cutting means that were broadly the same as that of Manning.
THE “FULTON” OF AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY
Of the two rivals, McCormick showed the better business ability in perfecting his invention and promoting it so that he eventually became to be considered the “Fulton” of agricultural machinery and the public forgot the pioneer work of Hussey. As a matter of fact, McCormick built his first successful reaper three years before he obtained his patent. Four horses were hitched to the machine and he went out into a neighboring field of oats to demonstrate it. In less than half a day he had reaped six acres, which was a remarkable performance when we consider that a single acre was considered a day’s work for one man. McCormick’s machine had a reel above the cutter to hold the grain against the knife and as the grain was cut it dropped upon a platform. A man walked alongside the machine and removed the grain with a rake. And so the reaper with two men to operate it did the work that had formerly required twelve men with the cradle.
The next important improvement was to provide a seat at one side of the reaper so that the man with the rake could ride. While this reduced the labor of the man it did not materially increase the efficiency of the machine. The next step, however, was of material importance. In place of raking off the hay by hand an automatic rake was furnished and the services of the extra man were dispensed with. One man could then do the work of twelve. McCormick had had difficulty in introducing his machine into public use, but now its superiority over hand labor was so marked that reapers came to be extensively employed on American farms. The reaper had reached this stage of its development when the World’s Fair of 1851 was held in London and McCormick’s machine was sent across the Atlantic to be displayed at the exhibition. At the same time Hussey sent over one of his machines which had reached the same stage of development. There was a British machine also on exhibition based on the invention of Rev. Patrick Bell of Scotland in 1826, but in a competition with the American machines it could not begin to compare in efficiency. The work of the American machines was a revelation to the British farmers. The prize was carried off by McCormick’s machine, which was declared by the judges to be worth the whole cost of the exposition. Unfortunately Hussey was not on hand to direct the operation of his machine, which may have had something to do with its failure, for in another test the Hussey reaper was found superior to the McCormick.