PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 283 



SO simple that a boy ten years of age can make the change and do 

 the work. 



Its simplicity is wonderful. Its perfect action is astonishing. 

 The mystery is, that the plan has not been before discovered. Of 

 the large number of gentlemen present, no one doubts that this is 

 the cheapest, simplest, completest self-raker ever invented. 



Of course it has not been tried in grain. That had passed by 

 before this idea was born. The machine Ave saw was the only one 

 ever built, and it is all in the rough, incident to first efforts and 

 new contrivances, with which to make experiments. 



It was tried in a seed clover field, where the dead straw and 

 weeds afl:brded a light swath, but enough to show very well how 

 the machinery works. Beside the stuff thus gathered, oat straw 

 was thrown on to make up gavels. These are discharged as often 

 as desired, by a slight touch of the driver's foot. It is very easy 

 to make the machine discharge itself, at intervals of sixteen feet, 

 without any attention from the driver. 



The gavels are laid compact and straight, six feet' away from 

 the standing grain ; thus leaving a clear space for the jiext round. 

 In being thrown off, the straw instead of lieing scattered, is com- 

 pacted, so as to make the gavels in good shape for the binder. 



In cutting grain, mixed with grass or weeds, the weeds are apt 

 to settle to the bottom, leaving the drj^est portion of the straw at 

 top, as it lies on the platform. By the operation of this machine, 

 these bunches are turned bottom up, so as to expose the greenest 

 portion to the sun. 



The cost of attaching this improvement to any mower or reaper 

 now in use, including a liberal fee to the inventor, will not exceed 

 fifty dollars. The whole will not weigh over two hundred and 

 fifty pounds — probably not over two hundred. 



All the machinery necessary to add to a mowing machine, to 

 drive this new self-raking apparatus, is the pully that drives the 

 ordinary reel. The reel does the raking. It is six and a half feet 

 in diameter, has six sets of arms, in the cross-head of one of which 

 are the rake-teeth. These clean the platform of all straw every 

 round. 



How this is done is no mj'stery to those who saw the machine 

 operate, and we could describe it so it would ])e full}^ understood 

 by our readers ; but this we alistain from doing now, at the parti- 

 cular request of the inventor, until he can secure his rights by 

 letters patent in Europe. We may say, however, that the new 



