MISCELLANEOUS. 449 



ting is accomplished in the same manner as though 

 having several pairs of shears moving through the 

 grass side by side. On the mower, however, one 

 blade of the shears is fixed, and is known as a guard 

 while the other blade moves back and forth and is 

 known as a section. There is a section for each 

 guard, and all the sections are riveted to one bar mak- 

 ing a device known as the sickle. This sickle is driven 

 by means of a pitman, one end of which is attached to 

 a crank-wheel. This crank-wheel in turn is driven by 

 a system of gears which are propelled by the mower 

 wheels. The guards are attached to one long bar, 

 and they go together and comprise what is known as 

 the cutter-bar. In the earlier machines this cutter- 

 bar was drawn directly behind the horses, but because 

 of the horses trampling the grass it was soon moved 

 out to one side so that the horses could travel on the 

 mown grass while the machine cut a new swath. The 

 essentials of a good mower are that there be very 

 little weight on the horses' necks, that the cutter-bar 

 does not tend to pull the machine around to one side, 

 making side draft, that the sections bear perfectly on 

 the guard plates, that the cutter-bar be in perfect line 

 with the pitman. There should be no lost motion 

 whatever in the gears, the cutter-bar should be so de- 

 signed that it will conform to uniform ground, and 

 yet be raised very easily, and a good feature is to have 

 the machine thrown out of gear as soon as the cutter- 

 bar is raised a certain height. 



Rakes. After the grass has been cut and allowed 

 to dry it is raked into windrows. There are two 

 kinds of horse rakes for this purpose. One which is 

 the older is the sulky rake, and the other is the side 

 delivery rake. This rake is used by traveling in the 

 same direction in which the mower has traveled gath- 

 ering the hay into one large bunch, and as soon as the 

 rake is full it is dumped. Every round one bunch is 

 dumped adjacent to the bunch of the previous round, 

 making windrows. This dumping action can be ac- 



