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.