A Story Outline of Evolution 



ging purposes. It is not known what methods primitive 

 man used in harvesting his grain before the use of iron came 

 into being, but since that time, beginning approximately 

 3,000 years ago and continuing until 150 years ago, the 

 hand sickle was the tool of harvest. The grain was beaten 

 out from its seed covering with a hand flail or tramped out 

 upon the ground and the chaff separated from it by the 

 wind. It was then ground into flour by the primitive people 

 through a process of rubbing it between stones. 



One of the strangest mysteries of mechanical develop- 

 ment is the small degree of progress that was made in 

 methods of harvesting for many centuries. From the begin- 

 ning of civilization to a period almost within the memory 

 of those still living, methods of harvesting the most impor- 

 tant article of food that has fed the hungry billions of men, 

 had undergone but little change. However, the progress 

 of the last few generations has more than balanced the 

 equation of unprogressive time with unprecedented mechani- 

 cal advancement by supplanting in turn the sickle with the 

 hand cradle, the cradle with the mechanical mower, the 

 mower with the self rake, the self rake with the self binder 

 and the self binder with the combine that cuts, binds, 

 thrashes and sacks the grain in one single operation, and 

 this is now followed by the portable flour mill propelled by 

 gasoline power that grinds the wheat into flour in the same 

 field where It Is produced. If our ancestors, a few genera- 

 tions removed, should again be permitted to view the 

 advance that has been made by their descendants, their 



thoughts would be ? we do not know. If we shall 



judge the future by the past, the generations living 500 or 



[44] 



