Steam Harvester and Thresher
The upper view shows side-hill harvesters drawn by teams of twenty-eight horses each. The machines cut the grain, and tie it up in bundles, which are dropped alongside. The machine in the lower view is self-propelling, cuts and threshes the grain, throwing out the straw, and places the grain in sacks ready for loading on the wagon.
Reproduced by permission of the Philadelphia Museums.
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