INDUSTRY 



43 



duced a machine adapted to cut grain and 

 deliver it in a swath beside the machine. 

 With what success, we are mainly left to 

 judge by the construction of the machine 

 itself, which embodied many of the valu 

 able elements of the reaping machine 

 that held sway during the second third of 

 the present century, only to be forced 

 into the background by better harvesting 

 methods. 



In order to give Mr. Gladstone the 

 credit due him, it is proper to say that his 

 reaper, like nine-tenths of the modern 

 harvesting machines, was .adapted to be 

 drawn, and not pushed, as the implement 



'GLADSTONE. 





of the Gauls was. Its cutting apparatus 

 was extended well to the right, so that 

 the horse drawing it might walk beside 

 the grain to be cut. It was supported 

 upon wheels, one at the outer extremity 

 of the cutting apparatus, and the other 

 substantially in the position now placed in 

 harvesting machines, and his cutting de 

 vices were operated by it. His machine 

 was not only adapted to cut the grain, 

 but deliver it at one side in order to make 

 a clear path of travel in cutting the next 

 round. 



His machine did not come into use, but 

 was patented and thus made public. 

 Whether practical in detail or not mat 

 ters little, for he left to the world as a 

 legacy the foundation principles of the 

 reaping machine. Those who followed 

 enriched the -art only by additions and 

 modifications. 



A second patent was granted to him 

 covering improvements. His machine 

 might leave the grain in almost a con 

 tinuous swath or in gavels, which de 

 pended only upon the number of raking 

 devices applied to his rotary cutting ap 

 paratus. 



In the patent granted to Salmon, who 

 followed him in 1808, is found a grain 

 receiving platform, differing in no respect 

 from that of the early practical reaper, a 

 cutting apparatus placed at its forward 

 edge, a divider to separate the grain be 



ing cut from that left standing, and an 

 orbitally moving rake adapted to remove 

 the grain in gavels to the ground. 



While it is of actual achievements that 

 we shall mainly write, it is well to say 

 that the actual achievement of the reap 

 ing machine was accomplished largely 

 from knowledge given us by those early 

 inventors, and it is proper that we point 

 out precisely what they have taught us, 

 for more than thirty machines have been 

 patented in England and America before 

 the machine of Bell, the Scotch preacher, 

 of 1828, was placed upon the market in 

 England. 



Kerr, Smith and others added their 

 mite of knowledge, and in 1822 Henry- 

 Ogle, an English schoolmaster, invented 

 a reaping machine that was made by a 

 Mr. Brown, and which cut one acre per 

 hour. The trial was so successful that 



OGLE. 



the laborers in the field, fearing the com 

 petition of the innovation, mobbed the 

 inventor and maker and broke up the ma 

 chine. The patent shows its construc 

 tion. 



The cutting apparatus of modern harv 

 esting machines is a modified form of 

 shears ; in the early machines, shears, pure 

 and simple, were arranged in series be 

 fore the receiving platform. As cutting 

 devices they operated well, but were ob 

 jectionable on account of the fact that 

 they did not clear themselves of shreds of 

 straw and grass. 



Bell's machine may be considered the 

 first practical reaper, because in it was 

 found the essential combination of me- 



