134 ELEMENTARY AGRICULTURE 



before a farmer was found who would buy one. The 

 next year two reapers were sold, then fifty, then a 

 thousand. The grain was raked from the platform 

 of the machine by a man walking behind. It had to 

 be bound and shocked by hand. Not long afterwards 

 lar2:er and better machines were made. It took 



Fig. 73. The first reaper. 



much hard work to change the reaper into the 

 modern binder (Fig. 74). 



The Self-binder. The machine in general use in 

 our country to-day is the self-binder, which cuts, 

 binds, and dumps the bundles in piles to be shocked 

 by hand (Fig. 75). On some of the large grain 

 farms there are as many as fifty self-binders, and 

 these often cut six hundred acres of wheat in one 

 day. To make a device that would bind the wheat 

 was a hard task. Finally one was made that would 



