MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 95 



with an iron hook and a hempen string. On Sherwood's plan, the man who 

 works the apparatus sits behind and lower than the driver, facing the plat- 

 form. The triangular table of the Manny Reaper is used in this case, although 

 it is claimed that to almost any other machine the patent binder can be ap- 

 plied. At the raker's feet is a half-circle shield of sheet iron to guide the 

 sheaf as raked to n'ithin reach of the binder. Behind the shield is an elbow- 

 joint, the short arm perhaps a foot long, and the long one something more, 

 with a handle on its end. Along the upper sides of both parts arc eyelets 

 through which a Xo. 20 wire is guided to the handle, after having passed 

 from a spool fixed between the driving-wheel and platform, along the under 

 side of the platform, and up through it to the eyelets. The binder to com- 

 mence puts the end of the wire between a pinion and spur-wheel, which hold 

 it firmly, while he pushes the elbow-joint tOAvard the raker, and with the 

 return motion passes his hand along the wire, bending it to the platform and 

 up the off side. He has plenty of slack wire to do this each time, for it un- 

 winds freely from the spool, and, the end being held by the gearing outside, 

 the bending back of the elbow-joint pulls wire up through the platform and 

 through the eyelets, as freely as required. Xow, the sheaf is raked directly 

 upon the wire that lies upon the platform. As it comes, the binder reaches 

 out, takes hold of the handle, and pulls the elbow-joint toward him, thus 

 causing the wire to tightly confine the sheaf of grain. He rests the end of 

 the handle so that the end of the wire is caught between the pinion and spur- 

 wheel, when he sets them in motion by turning a crank, and they twist the 

 two ends of the wire together around the sheaf, making, at the same time, 

 a new twist for one end of the next band; a knife cuts the bundle loose, and 

 it falls, all nicely bound, upon the platform. 



J. P. Manny's binding apparatus is altogether different. He has only two 

 men, a driver and a binder, the raking being done by the machine. The cut 

 grain is carried sidewise on an endless slatted apron and up an incline, in the 

 usual way. On its passage up, it is confined from blowing away by light 

 slats, and arriving at the summit, it tumbles into a cradle, of which there are 

 three on one shaft, each in succession being brought uppermost by one-third 

 of an entire revolution. One finger of each cradle is of iron, the three made 

 in one casting. The iron finger has a forked end to receive the small cast- 

 iron hook of the sheaf-band. The knotted end of the band, which is noth- 

 ing but a stout hempen string, about thirty inches long, is put in a notch of 

 a spring-catch, and is then ready in place for the grain, which is suffered to 

 fall into the cradle. When enough has accumulated for a sheaf, the binder 

 trips a lever with his foot, which causes the cradle-shaft to revolve, the hook 

 is brought by the iron finger-end to catch the knotted end of the string, the 

 binding is completed, and the band being freed from the catch, the gavel 

 falls on the ground. The little cast-iron band-hook will weigh perhaps two 

 ounces, but it is a mere shell, and if, by oversight, a half-dozen or more were 

 fed with the grain into the machine, they would be crushed like an egg-shell, 

 and the string be shredded to bits. I saw four of them put into a thrasher, 

 that was being tried by a committee, but no extra noise indicated their pas- 

 sage through ; nor could I, after careful search, find the least fragment of iron 

 or string a moment after they must have been ejected. 



The sheaves arc firmly bound by both machines, quite as well as good 

 hand binding. You may kick and toss them about, take them up by one 

 side and shake them roughly, and they do not come untied. And both kinds 

 of bands may be loosened in the instant at the threshing-table. The Sher- 



