THE REAPER.
EARLY ENGLISH MACHINES--MACHINE OF PATRICK BELL--THE HUSSEY
REAPER--MCCORMICK’S REAPER AND ITS GREAT SUCCESS--RIVALRY BETWEEN
THE TWO AMERICAN REAPERS--SELF RAKERS--AUTOMATIC BINDERS--COMBINED
STEAM REAPER AND THRESHING MACHINE--GREAT WHEAT FIELDS OF THE
WEST--STATISTICS.
In the harvest scenes upon the tombs of ancient Thebes the thirsty
reaper is depicted, with curved sickle in hand, alternately bending his
back to the grain and refreshing himself at the skin bottle. For more
than thirty centuries did man thus continue to earn his bread by the
sweat of his brow. Even to the present time the scythe, with its cradle
of wooden fingers, is occasionally met with, and it is to the older
generation a familiar suggestion of the sweat, toil, bustle and
excitement of the old harvest time. But all this has been changed by the
advent of the reaper, and ere long the grain cradle will hang on the
walls of the museum as an ethnological specimen only.
The first reaper of which we find historical evidence is that described
by Pliny in the first century of the Christian Era (A. D. 70). He says:
“The mode of getting in the harvest varies considerably. In the vast
domains of the province of Gaul a large hollow frame, armed with
comb-like teeth, and supported on two wheels, is driven through the
standing grain, the beasts being yoked behind it (in contrarium juncto),
the result being that the ears are torn off and fall within the frame.”
This crude machine has in late years been many times re-invented, and it
finds a special application to-day for the gathering of clover seeds,
and is called a “header.”
The first attempt of modern times to devise a reaper was the English
machine of Pitt, in 1786, which followed the principle of the old Gallic
implement, in that it stripped the heads from the standing grain. The
Pitt machine, however, had a revolving cylinder on which were rows of
comb teeth, which tore off the heads of grain and discharged them into a
receptacle. In 1799 Boyce, of England, invented the vertical shaft, with
horizontally rotating cutters. In 1800 Mears devised a machine
employing shears. In 1806 Gladstone devised a front-draft, side-cut
machine, in which a curved segment-bar with fingers gathered the grain
and held it while a horizontally revolving knife cut the same. In 1811
Cumming introduced the reel, and in 1814 Dobbs described a wheelbarrow
arrangement of reaper in which he used the divider. In 1822 the
important improvement of the reciprocating knife bar was made by Ogle,
which became a characteristic feature of all subsequent successful
reapers. It was drawn by horses in front. The cutter bar projected at
the side. It had a reel to gather the grain to the cutter, and the grain
platform was tilted to drop the gavel. In 1826 Rev. Patrick Bell, of
Scotland, devised a reaper that had a movable vibrating cutter working
like a series of shears, a reel, and a traveling apron, which carried
off the grain to one side. This machine was pushed from behind, and,
with a swath of five feet, cut an acre in an hour. It was, however, for
some reason laid aside till 1851, when it was reorganized and put in
service at the World’s Fair in London in competition with the American
machines. All the earlier experiments in the development of the reaper
were made in England. Grain raising was in its infancy in the United
States, and near the end of the Eighteenth Century the Royal
Agricultural Society of England had stimulated its own inventors by
offering a prize for the production of a successful reaper, and
continued thus to offer it for many years. There is no evidence,
however, that the preceding machines attained any practical results,
and it remained for the fertility of American genius to invent a
practical reaper which satisfactorily performed its work, and continued
to do so. Quite a number of patents for reapers were granted to American
inventors in the early part of the century, among which may be mentioned
that to Manning, of Plainfield, N. J., May 3, 1831, which embodied
finger bars to hold the grain and a reciprocating cutter bar with
spear-shaped blades.
[Illustration: FIG. 149.--PATENT OFFICE DRAWING, HUSSEY’S REAPER,
DECEMBER 31, 1833.]
Cyrus H. McCormick, of Virginia, and Obed Hussey, of Maryland, were the
men who brought the reaper to a condition of practical utility.
The commercial development of their machines was practically
contemporaneous, and their respective claims for superiority had about
an equal number of supporters among the farmers of that day. Hussey,
originally of Cincinnati, but afterwards of Maryland, was the first to
obtain a patent, which was granted December 31, 1833. An illustration of
the patent drawing is given in Fig. 149. It embodied a reciprocating saw
tooth cutter _f_ sliding within double guard fingers _e_. It had a front
draft, side-cut, and a platform. The cutter was driven by a pitman from
a crank shaft operated through gear wheels from the main drive wheels.
His specification provided for the locking or unlocking of the drive
wheels; also for the hinging of the platform, and states that the
operator who takes off the grain may ride on the machine.
[Illustration: FIG. 150.--PATENT OFFICE DRAWING, McCORMICK’S REAPER,
JUNE 21, 1834.]
On June 21, 1834, Cyrus H. McCormick, of Virginia, obtained a patent on
his reaper. In Fig. 150 appears an illustration of his patent drawing.
This had two features which were not found in the Hussey patent, viz., a
reel on a horizontal axis above the cutter, and a divider L, at the
outer end of the cutter, which divider projected in front of the cutter,
and separated in advance the grain which was to be cut from that which
was to be left standing. McCormick’s machine had two cutters or knives,
reciprocated by cranks in opposite directions to each other. This
feature he afterward abandoned, adopting the single knife, described by
him as an alternative. This machine was to be pushed ahead of the team,
which was hitched to the bar C of the tongue B in the rear, but
provision was made for a front draft by a pair of shafts in front, shown
in dotted lines. The curved dotted line beside the shafts indicated a
bowed guard to press the standing grain away from the horse. The divider
L had a cloth screen extending to the rear of the platform.
Neither Hussey nor McCormick appears at that time to have been cognizant
of the prior state of the art, and as the patent law of 1836 had not yet
been enacted, there was little or no examination as to novelty, and no
interference proceedings as to priority of invention, and consequently
their respective claims were drawn to much that was old, and probably
much that would have been in conflict with each other under the present
practice of the Patent Office. In the _Scientific American_, of December
16 and 23, 1854, in a most interesting series of articles on the reaper,
the Hussey machine is fully described. The first public trial was on
July 2, 1833, before the Hamilton County Agricultural Society, near
Carthage, O., and its success was attested by nine witnesses. Great
stress was laid by Mr. Hussey on the double finger bar, _i. e._, a
finger bar having one member above and the other below the knife. The
_Scientific American_ said the machine was a success from the first;
that “in 1834 the machine was introduced into Illinois and New York, and
in 1837 into Pennsylvania, and in 1838 Mr. Hussey moved from Ohio to
Baltimore, Md., and continued to manufacture his reapers there up to the
present time.”
In 1836 Hussey was invited by the Maryland Agricultural Society for the
Eastern Shore to exhibit his machine before them. On July 1 he did so,
and made practical demonstration of its working to the society at
Oxford, Talbot County, and again on July 12 at Easton. On the following
Saturday it was shown at Trappe, and it was afterwards used on the farm
of Mr. Tench Tilghman, where 180 acres of wheat, oats and barley were
cut with it. The report of the Board of Trustees of the society was an
unqualified commendation of the practicability, efficiency and value of
the machine, and a handsome pair of silver cups was awarded to the
inventor. The report was signed by the following well-known residents of
the Eastern Shore: Robert H. Goldsborough, Samuel Stevens, Samuel T.
Kennard, Robert Banning, Samuel Hambleton, Sr., Nichol Goldsborough, Ed.
N. Hambleton, James L. Chamberlain, Martin Goldsborough, Horatio L.
Edmonson, and Tench Tilghman.
Hussey made and sold his machine for years. In the _American Farmer_, of
October, 1847, an agricultural journal printed at Baltimore, the
advertisement of his machine appears with full price lists of the
different sizes of machines, and also of an improvement in the manner of
disposing of the grain, which was the invention of Mr. Tench Tilghman,
and was adopted by Hussey on his reaper.
[Illustration: FIG. 151.--THE McCORMICK REAPER OF 1847.]
While Hussey was at work at his reaper, McCormick also was busily
engaged with his, and he took his second patent January 31, 1845, No.
3,895. This related to the cutter bar, the divider, and reel post.
McCormick’s next patent was dated October 23, 1847, No. 5,335, and in
this the raker’s seat was to be mounted on the platform as shown in Fig.
151. McCormick’s last named patent also covered the arrangement of the
gearing and crank in front of the drive wheel, so as to balance the
weight of the raker. In the same year Hussey took out his patent of
August 7, 1847, No. 5,227, for the open top and slotted finger guard,
which is an important part of all successful cutter bars.
[Illustration: FIG. 152.--THE MANN HARVESTER OF 1849.]
The rivalry between the McCormick and Hussey machines continued for many
years, and they were frequently in competition both in America and
England. The stimulus of this rivalry doubtless had much to do with the
development and success of the reaper. Both Hussey and McCormick asked
for extensions of their patents, but they failed to get them. In 1848,
pending McCormick’s extension proceedings, facts were introduced by him
to show that his invention of the reaper antedated Hussey’s, and that he
had made his machine as early as 1831, and had used it then on the farm
of Mr. John Steele, in Virginia. This claim to priority was supported by
the publication of a description of the machine, and certificate of its
use, in the _Union_, a newspaper published at Lexington, Va., September
28, 1833, and although no adjudication was ever made on this issue, this
fact, together with Mr. McCormick’s success in the contest in England in
1851, and his subsequent persistence and activity in improving,
developing and introducing the reaper, has so distinguished him in this
connection, that to-day his name is as commonly associated with the
reaper as is Fulton’s with the steamboat, or that of Morse with the
telegraph. To Mr. McCormick more than to anybody else the perfection of
the reaper is due. In the spring of 1851 McCormick placed his reaper on
exhibition at the World’s Fair in London. Hussey also had his machine
there, and they were the only ones represented. The machines were tested
in the field, and astonished all who saw them operate. The Grand Council
medal, which was one of four special medals awarded for marked epochs in
progress, was given to McCormick, and the judges referred to the
McCormick machine as being worth to the people of England “the whole
cost of the exposition.” It is only fair to state that Hussey was not
present to direct the trial of his machine, and that in a subsequent
trial another jury decided in his favor, and His Royal Highness, Prince
Albert, ordered two of Hussey’s machines in 1851--one for Windsor and
the other for the Isle of Wight. The Duke of Marlborough also gave his
personal testimonial to Mr. Hussey as to the excellence of his machine.
In 1855, at a competitive trial of reapers near Paris, three machines
were entered. The American machine cut an acre of oats in twenty-two
minutes, the English machine in sixty-six minutes, and the Algerian in
seventy-two. In 1863, at the great International Exposition at Hamburg,
the McCormick reaper again took the grand prize. While in Paris in 1878
Mr. McCormick was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences as
“having done more for the cause of agriculture than any living man.” Mr.
McCormick continued to the end of his days, in 1884, to devote his
entire energies to the development of the reaper, and well deserved the
princely fortune that resulted from his indefatigable labors, a good
portion of which fortune he spent during his life in the cause of
education and acts of philanthropy. The inventory of his estate, filed
in the Probate Court of Cook County, Ill., showed $10,000,000 as the
reward of his genius and industry, and is an object lesson of the reward
of merit for the ambitious youth of the Twentieth Century.
[Illustration: FIG. 153.--THE MARSH HARVESTER OF 1858.]
[Illustration: FIG. 154.--THE CHAMPION REAPER.]
In the development of the reaper one of the first deficiencies to be
supplied was automatic mechanism for taking the grain from the
platform. In November, 1848, F. S. Pease took out patent No. 5,925 for
a rake whose teeth projected up through slots in the platform, and moved
back and forth to deposit the grain upon the ground. On June 19, 1849,
J. J. & H. F. Mann took out patent No. 6,540 on a machine employing the
principle of an endless band for carrying the cut grain to the side of
the machine, where it passed up an inclined plane and accumulated in a
receptacle to form a gavel, which was clumped upon the ground. This
machine is shown in Fig. 152. On July 8, 1851, W. H. Seymour took out
patent No. 8,212 for a self-raker, and this machine marks the beginning
of the era of self-raking reapers, which for a quarter of a century in
various modifications continued to be used, until displaced by
subsequent improvements in binding devices. In 1853 the Sylla and Adams
machine was brought out, the patents for which were bought by the
Aultmans, and the Aultman and Miller, or “Buckeye” harvester, was
manufactured thereunder. The general form of the modern harvester has
followed along the lines of the Mann machine of 1849. The development
began by replacing the gavel receptacle on the right of that machine
(Fig. 152) with a platform on which stood men who rode on the machine as
they bound the grain. An early and important example of a harvester of
this class is given in the Marsh machine, patented August 15, 1858, No.
21,207, and shown in Fig. 153. To this type of machine the self-binding
devices were subsequently applied, but before they materialized many
other improvements in self-rakers were made and applied, among which may
be mentioned the combined rake and reel of Owen Dorsey, of Maryland
(1856), sweeping horizontally across the quadrantal platform; the
McClintock Young revolving reel, carrying a rake; the Henderson rake
(1860) used on the Wood machine; the Seiberling dropper (1861), which
consisted of a slotted platform which moved to discharge the gavel; and
the various improvements covered by Whiteley’s patents, which were
embodied in the Champion reaper, of Springfield, O., and which is shown
in Fig. 154. This machine had a combined rake and reel of the Dorsey
type, whose arms moved over a circular inclined and stationary cam, and
whose rakes had a horizontal sweep over the platform, and a vertical
return over the wheels.
[Illustration: FIG. 155.--THE LOCKE WIRE BINDER OF 1873.]
The next step, and, perhaps the most important one, in the development
of the reaper, was in providing automatic devices for binding the gavels
of grain into sheaves. John E. Heath, of Ohio, in patent No. 7,520, of
July 22, 1850, was the pioneer, and he used cord. Watson, Renwick &
Watson, in patent No. 8,083, of May 13, 1851, and C. A. McPhitridge, in
patent No. 16,097, of November 18, 1856, quickly followed in the attempt
to provide such a device, the former using cord and the latter wire. But
the problem was not an easy one to solve. On November 16, 1858, W. Grey
took out patent No. 22,074, for starting the binding mechanism by the
weight of the bundle. Probably the first to complete a binding
attachment that was partly automatic, and to attach it to a reaping
machine, were H. M. & W. W. Burson, of Illinois. On June 26, 1860, and
October 4, 1864, W. W. Burson patented a cord binder, and in 1863 one
thousand machines were built. These machines, however, used wire, and
being assisted in their operations by hand labor, were not truly
automatic. On February 16, 1864, Jacob Behel, of Illinois, obtained a
patent, No. 41,661, for a very important invention in binders. He showed
and claimed for the first time the knotting bill, which loops and forms
the knot, and the turning cord holder for retaining the end of the cord.
On May 31, 1870, George H. Spaulding took out patent No. 103,673 for a
binder which automatically regulated the bundles to a uniform size.
Sylvanus D. Locke, of Wisconsin, was the next inventor who undertook to
solve the problem. He took out patents No. 121,290, November 28, 1871,
and No. 149,233, March 31, 1874, and many others. In 1873 he associated
himself with Walter A. Wood, and they built and sold probably the first
automatic self-binding harvester that was ever put upon the market. The
Locke wire binder of 1873 is shown in Fig. 155. The use of wire,
however, for binding grain, involved certain objections in that it
required a special cutting tool for cutting the sheaves at the thresher,
and it was not easy to remove the wire, and parts of it were likely to
go through the thresher. Inventors accordingly concentrated their
attention on the use of twine or cord. Marquis L. Gorham, of Illinois,
built a successful twine binder, and had it at work in the harvest field
in 1874. This machine, covered by patent No. 159,506, February 9, 1875,
not only bound by cord, but produced bundles of the same size. The grain
in this machine is delivered by the elevator of the harvester upon a
platform, where it is seized by packers and carried forward into a
second chamber, where it is compacted by the packers against a yielding
trip, so that when sufficient grain is accumulated, the trip will yield
and start the binding mechanism into operation. The ball of cord carried
on the machine has one end threaded through the needle and fastened in a
holder. The grain is forced against the cord by the packers, and when
the binder starts the needle encircles the gavel, carrying the cord to a
knotting bill, and the end is again seized by the rotating holder, the
loop formed, the ends of the band severed, and the bound bundle is
discharged from the machine. A gate, which has in the meantime shut off
the flow of grain, is now drawn back, and the operation is repeated. On
February 18, 1879, John F. Appleby took out a patent, No. 212,420, for
an improvement on the Gorham binder. In Fig. 156 is shown a modern
automatic self-binding reaper which embodies the fundamental principles
of McCormick and Hussey, the inclined elevator and platform shown by
Marsh, and the automatic binding devices of Behel, Gorham and Appleby.
[Illustration: FIG. 156.--MODERN AUTOMATIC SELF-BINDING REAPER.]
This machine, under favorable conditions, with one driver, cuts twenty
acres of wheat in a day, binds it, and carries the bound bundles into
windrows, and with one shocker, performs the work of twenty men, and
does it better, the saving in the waste of grain over hand labor being
sufficient to pay for the twine used in binding. It is said that the
self-binding reaper has reduced the cost of harvesting grain to less
than half a cent a bushel.
It is estimated that more than 180,000 machines of the self-binding type
are now produced yearly, the manufacturers in Chicago alone turning out
more than three-fourths of this number. It is not possible to do justice
to all the worthy workers in this great industry. Nearly 10,000 patents
have been granted on reaping and mowing machines, and the conspicuous
names of Whiteley, Wood, Atkins, Manny, Yost, and Ketchum, in addition
to those already mentioned, are only a small part of the great army of
inventors who have contributed to the development and perfection of the
reaper.
In 1840 it is said there were but three reapers made. To-day the total
number of self-binding harvesters, reapers and mowers in use is
estimated to be two millions. The growth of this industry in the four
earlier decades is as follows (the relatively small increase between
1860 and 1870 being accounted for by the Civil War):
1840. 1850. 1860. 1870. 1880.
Machines made 3 3,000 20,000 30,000 60,000
Immediately succeeding this period the automatic cord binder was put
into use, and within five years the increase in output of reapers and
mowers was very great. In 1885 more than 100,000 self-binding harvesters
and 150,000 reapers and mowers were built and sold. In 1890 two
manufacturing establishments in Chicago made more than 200,000 machines,
half of which were self-binders and the other half reapers and mowers,
and these two institutions alone employed in their various branches of
manufacturing and selling 10,000 employees. In 1895 the output of the
largest of these manufacturing establishments was 60,000 self-binding
harvesters, fitted with bundle carriers and trucks, 61,000 mowers,
10,000 corn harvesters, and 5,000 reapers, making 136,000 machines in
all. In 1898 the output of this one factory for the year was 74,000
self-binding harvesters, 107,000 mowers, 9,000 corn harvesters, and
10,000 reapers, amounting to 200,000 machines. This output, together
with 75,000 horse rakes, also made, averaged a complete machine for
every forty seconds in the year, working ten hours a day. The estimated
annual production of all factories in this class of agricultural
implements is 180,000 self-binding harvesters, 250,000 mowing machines,
18,000 corn harvesters, and 25,000 reapers.
[Illustration: FIG. 157.--STEAM HARVESTER AND THRESHER.
The wheat is headed, threshed, cleaned and sacked by this machine in one
continuous operation.--Cutter, 26 feet wide; Capacity, 75 acres per
day.]
[Illustration: FIG. 158.--FIFTY HORSE POWER STEAM PLANTING COMBINATION.
Traction engine pulling sixteen 10-inch plows, four 6-foot harrows, and
a drill.]
There were exported in the year 1880 about 800 self-binding harvesters,
2,000 reapers, and 1,000 mowers. In 1890 this was increased to 3,000
self-binding harvesters, 4,000 reapers, and 2,000 mowers. The total
value of mowers and reapers exported in 1890 was $2,092,638. The growth
subsequent to 1890 is well attested by the exports for 1899, which for
mowers and reapers was $9,053,830, or more than four times what it was
in 1890. These exported machines harvest the crops of the Argentine
Republic, Paraguay, and Uruguay, of South America; carry their
labor-saving values to Australia and New Zealand; traverse the wheat
fields along the banks of the Red Sea and the Volga, and are used
throughout all the continent of Europe.
[Illustration: FIG. 159.--A WESTERN HARVEST SCENE (LEFT SECTION OF
VIEW).]
[Illustration: FIG. 159.--A WESTERN HARVEST SCENE (RIGHT SECTION OF
VIEW).]
With the self-binding harvester performing the work of twenty men,
cutting and binding the grain, and arranging the bundles in windrows, it
would seem that perfection in this art had been reached, but the
tendency of the age is to do things on a constantly increasing scale,
and so the latest developments in harvesters comprise a mammoth machine
(Fig. 157) propelled across the grain fields by steam, and which by the
same power cuts a swath from 26 to 28 feet wide, threshes it at once as
it moves along, blows out the chaff, and puts the grain in bags at the
rate of three bags per minute, each bag containing one hundred and
fifteen pounds, and requiring two expert bag sewers to take the grain
away from the spout, sew the bags, and dump them on the ground.
Seventy-five acres a day is its task. A companion piece to this machine
is illustrated in Fig. 158, which shows the same power utilized for
planting. A powerful steam traction engine of fifty horse power hauls
across the field a planting combination of sixteen ten-inch plows, four
six-foot harrows and a seeding drill in the rear. Such great reaping
machines only find useful application in the enormous wheat fields of
California and the Pacific Coast States, where the dry climate permits
the grain to ripen and dry sufficiently while standing in the field.
Moreover, only the heads of the grain are cut, the straw being left
standing. Some conception of the enormous scale upon which grain is
raised in the Western States may be gotten from the dimensions of the
farms. It is said that Dr. Glenn’s wheat farm comprises 45,000 acres;
the Dalrymples’, in North Dakota, 70,000; and Mr. Mitchell, in the San
Joaquin Valley, in California, has 90,000 acres. The Dalrymple farms in
1893 had 54,000 acres in wheat, and employed 283 self-binding reapers to
harvest the crop. There is a single unbroken wheat field on the banks of
the San Joaquin River, near the town of Clovis, in Madera County,
California, which comprises 25,000 acres, or nearly forty square miles
of wheat--a veritable sea of waving grain. The field is nearly square;
each side is a little over six miles long. If its shape were changed to
the width of one mile, the field would then be forty miles long. It has
been said of the grain fields of the West, that the men and teams eat
breakfast at one end of a furrow, take dinner in the middle of the
row, and at night camp and sup at the end of the same row. With a field
of such proportions it is not difficult to see how this may be true. The
cultivation and garnering of crops from such vast areas can only be
appreciated by comparisons. If it were one man’s work to plow such a
field, even with a double gang plow, cutting a furrow twenty-four inches
wide, he would travel 105,600 miles, which would be equivalent to going
around the world four times. If he plowed twenty miles a day, it would
take 5,280 days. To harrow would require as long, and to plant would
take about the same time, or about forty-three years altogether. A full
lifetime would be required to plant the crop, and a second generation
would be required to reap it. But great results require great agencies,
and so great labor-saving machines, operated by armies of men, are
brought into requisition, and with these the crop is both planted and
reaped. A long procession of self-binding harvesters, following close
one behind the other, makes quick work of it, and before the weather
changes this great field is mowed, its crop garnered, and bread supplied
for the hungry of all lands.
The exports of wheat to foreign lands in 1898 were 148,231,261 bushels,
worth $145,684,659, and the exports of wheat flour for the same year
were 15,349,943 barrels, worth $69,263,718. The total yield of wheat in
the United States for 1898 was 675,148,705 bushels.
With the fertile earth, and its prolific inventors, the United States
has become the richest country in the world. What its future is to be no
man may say, but its destiny is not yet fulfilled, and it is pregnant
with potential possibilities.