SECRETARY'S REPORT. 89 



enabling us to secure the whole product of all that was before 

 planted, but also by making it possible for the farmer to in- 

 crease the area of his cultivated fields, with a certainty of 

 being able to gather in his whole crop. 



The sickle is undoubtedly as old as the days of Tubal Cain, 

 and was almost universally used till within the memory of men 

 still living. No one, who has had a practical experience of its 

 use, can fail to appreciate the immense saving of slow and 

 wearisome hand labor by the use of the reaper. 



The reaper is no new thing in point of fact. It would, 

 indeed, have been an astonishing evidence of stupidity on the 

 part of the ancients, who relied mainly upon wheat and the 

 other small grains, had they not, at least, tried to replace the 

 sickle by something better. This they did. They were accus- 

 tomed to use a simple reaper in France, a few years after Christ, 

 for Pliny asserts that the inhabitants of that country fixed a 

 series of knives into the tail end of a cart, and this being pro- 

 pelled through the grain, clipped off the ears or heads, and thus 

 it was harvested. 



In England, the importance of adopting some method to 

 shorten the labor of harvesting grain was early seen, and efforts 

 were made to accomplish this end, at the close of the last and 

 the beginning of this century. The first patent granted for a 

 reaping machine was that to Boyce, of London, in 1799. 

 Then followed the patent of Meares in 1800, that of Plucknett 

 in 1805, and that of Cumming in 1811, clearly foreshadowing 

 some of the useful improvements of subsequent patents. 

 Smith, of Deanston, Scotland, invented a machine in 1812, 

 which with some improvements, worked successfully, though it 

 had only a local reputation till 1835, when it was used before 

 the Highland and Agricultural Society. The next model was 

 produced by Dobbs, on the stage of the Birmingham theatre, in 

 1814.* 



* The handbills posted in the streets state that the performance was for the 

 "Benefit of Mr. Dobbs." "J. Dobbs respectfully informs his friends and the 

 public, that, having invented a machine to expedite the reaping of grain, &c., and 

 having been unable to obtain a patent, until too late to give it a general inspection in 

 the field with safety, he is induced to take advantage of his theatrical profession, and 

 make it known to his friends, who have been anxious to see it, through that medium. 

 Part of the stage will be planted with wheat that the machine has cut and gathered 

 where it grew, and the machine worked exactly as in the field." The BirmiugJiam 

 Gazette, shortly after, said the "first experiment was completely successful." 



