SOLON ROBINSON, 1841 277 



brated and valuable reaping machine. This machine is 

 beyond doubt a very useful implement for the farmer, 

 particularly upon very smooth land, such, for instance, 

 as the western prairies. There is, however, in the west a 

 new harvesting machine that bids fair to do away with 

 machines for reaping. It is a machine that actually 

 gathers the grain out of the heads of the standing grain, 

 as clean as it can be thrashed by a machine, leaving the 

 straw standing in the field. I had seen the model of the 

 machine at Chicago last spring, and most unexpectedly 

 to-day I met with my friend Wright, editor of the Chi- 

 cago Agriculturist, who informs me that the machine has 

 been completed and used during the late harvest, and 

 that it operates to perfection — with three horses, gather- 

 ing from 10 to 15 acres of wheat a day. 



Baltimore also boasts of another lately invented ma- 

 chine, that appears to me to be one that will prove of 

 immense advantage to the community. This is "Page's 

 Saw Mill." 1 The saw is a circular one, and it may be 

 driven by horse or any other power, and is so portable 

 that a mill large enough to saw a log two feet through 

 and twelve feet long, with all the apparatus can be put 

 into a two horse wagon, and taken into the woods and 

 with the assistance of two men, set up and set to work 

 in less than two days, and with the power of the two 

 horses. I dare not say how much lumber it will cut per 

 day, but think that you will be satisfied with a thousand 

 feet, although the patentee would not be. In fact, no in- 

 vention has met my eye that seems better calculatd to be 

 useful to the agricultural community than Page's port- 

 able saw mill. 



a reaper, and subsequent development of that machine was based 

 on the principles of his device. See Dictionary of American Biog- 

 raphy, 9:431-32, 11:607-9. 



1 George Page, inventor and manufacturer of a portable sawmill 

 propelled by a portable steam engine. See Cultivator, 9:59-60 

 (April, 1842). 



