LABOR SAVING MACHINERY. 13 



combined reaping, thrashing, and winnowing machine, 

 of which a brief account will be given. 



The sewing machine, now so common, exercised the 

 ingenuity of mechanicians for a long period before it 

 arrived at sufficient perfection to be suitable for general 

 use. The earlier machines were for embroidering only; 

 then, about 1790, one was made for stitching shoes and 

 other leather work, but it does not seem to have come 

 into general use. A crocheting machine was patented 

 in 1834; somewhat later one for rough basting; but it 

 was not till 1846 that the first effective lock-stitch sew- 

 ing machine was made by Elias Howe, of Cambridge, 

 Mass. Henceforth sewing machines were rapidly im- 

 proved and adapted to every variety of work; but the 

 difficulty of the problem to be solved is shown by the 

 unusually long process of gradual development, much 

 of the mechanical talent of both hemispheres being 

 occupied for nearly a century before the various ma- 

 chines so familiar to-day were perfected. There are 

 now special machines for making button-holes and for 

 sewing on buttons, for carpet-sewing, for pattern-sewing, 

 for leather work, and for the special operations required 

 in the making and repairing of shoes. Boot and shoe- 

 making by machinery, in large factories, has entirely 

 grown up since the sewing-machine was proved to .be 

 adapted for almost every kind of sewing work. As a 

 result, machine-made boots and shoes are very cheap, 

 but they are usually of inferior quality to the old hand- 

 made articles; and first-class work is quite as dear as it 

 was fifty or sixty years ago, or even dearer. 



The typewriter is a still later invention, and though 

 perhaps less difficult than the sewing machine, yet it 



