REAPING MACHINE 



4945 



REAPING MACHINE 



indebtedness of the estate, the administrator 

 is required to sell sufficient real estate to make 

 up the deficiency. 



Real estate cannot be conveyed except by 

 written contract. English law recognizes rail- 

 way stocks or bonds as real property, but in 

 the United States they are classified as personal 

 property. The term real property came into 

 use from the fact that in case of contest over 

 the title the rightful owner received the real 

 (actual) property and not a money equivalent. 



Consult Washburn's American Law of Real 

 Property; Leake's Elementary Digest of the Law 

 of Property in Land. 



Related Subject*. The following articles in 

 these volumes should be read in connection with 

 this topic: 



Deed Personal Property 



Mortgage Torrens System 



REAPING, reep'ing, MACHINE. In 1917 

 about 62,000,000 acres of farm lands in the 

 United States were devoted to raising wheat. 

 \V re all this land placed together it would 

 form a vast wheat field, larger than the com- 

 bined areas of Illinois and Indiana. With "the 

 old hand sickle a good reaper could reap an 



a day. There are about 6,500,000 farmers 

 in the United States and Canada ; if one-fourth 

 of them could devote their time to harvesting 

 the wheat crop by the sickle method it would 

 require forty days to complete the harvest; 

 before the expiration of one-half that time, 

 however, a part of the crop would not be worth 

 harvesting. Therefore under primitive condi- 

 tions large crops were impossible. The present 

 crops of the United States and of Canada and 

 other wheat-growing countries have been made 

 possible by the reaping machine, invented by 

 Cyrus H. McCormick in 1831 (see McCoRMiCK, 

 CYRUS H.). 



The First Reaper. This was a crude ma- 

 chine, but it revolutionized the practice of grain 

 growing. It was supported on two wheels, one 

 being the king wheel, to which the gearing was 

 attached. This wheel was of cast iron and had 

 projections on its outer rim to keep it from 

 slipping. The cutting part consisted of a hori- 

 zontal steel plate called the cutter bar, which 

 was six feet long, about five inches wide and 

 half an inch thick. To this bar long steel points 



1 fingers were riveted. The cutting was 

 done by triangular knives attached to a steel 

 bar which slid forward and backward in a 

 groove in the infers. A rapid motion was im- 

 parted to the knife bar by a crank opei 

 by the gearing attached to the king wheel. A 



ler separated the grain that was to be cut 



310 



from that left standing, and a reel bent the 

 grain back against the knives, picking up the 

 stalks that were bent or lodged, so that all the 

 grain was cut. As the grain was cut it was laid 

 on a platform, from which it was raked into 

 gavels by a man following the machine. These 

 were the essential parts of the first successful 

 reaper. 



The Modern Harvester. The modern har- 

 vester, or self-binder, has been developed from 

 the original reaper. The first improvement 

 consisted of a self-raking device which rakes 

 the grain from the platform and dispenses with 

 the labor of the extra man. Following this 

 came the canvas belt which carries the grain 

 over the king wheel to a box. From this box 

 it is taken and bound by men riding on a plat- 

 form attached to the machine. Then came 

 the knotting device, an ingenious piece of ma- 

 chinery which enables the harvester to bind as 

 well as cut the grain. In the self-binder the 

 canvas belt carries the grain to the binding box, 

 where it is packed until there is enough for a 

 bundle. Then a catch sets the knotting appa- 

 ratus in motion, and the bundle is firmly bound 

 with twine and thrown from the box by a 

 spring, lodging upon a platform or the ground, 

 according to the plan of the machine. An 

 ordinary harvester requires four horses to oper- 

 ate it successfully, and it will harvest ten acres 

 of grain a day. It can be used with equal suc- 

 cess in harvesting wheat, oats, barley and rye. 

 On some of the largest farms traction engines 

 are used for operating the machines, one en- 

 gine hauling several machine?. 



The header is a modified form of har 

 used in regions where the grain is well dried 

 before harvesting. It cuts the grain just be- 

 low the heads, which are carried by an ele- 

 vator to a storage box on the machine or to a 

 wagon drawn beside it. The heads are stacked 

 until dry enough to thrash. Headers are used 

 to some extent where dry weather precedes the 

 hanot. In California, Oregon and Washing- 

 ton and in some parts of W< -tc m Canada a 

 combined header and thra>her i- u d Here 

 lip- grain can stand until it is thoroughly dry. 

 when it may be harvested, thra.-hed and put 

 into sacks ready for market without n handling. 

 A harvester cute a swath twice as wide as a 

 reaper, and a combined har\e-ier and tin 

 requires from twenty to twenty-four horses to 

 opera t 



Probably no other invention has contributed 

 so much towards increasing the food supply of 

 the race aa the reaping machine. The largest 



