254 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pul). Doc. 



of De Kalb County, Illinois, in 1858, though many others 

 have contributed something to its present form. The first 

 harvester was an attachment to a reaper, carrying the cut 

 grain to a table, where it was bound by hand. The efibrts 

 of S. D. Lock and John F. Appleby, from 1861 to 1876, 

 were largely instrumental in working out the problem of an 

 automatic wire or twine binder. 



The cutting of grass and grain by machinery was being 

 thought of in England a century ago. In 1822 Henry Ogle, 

 a schoolmaster of Rennington, England, with the aid of the 

 Brown Brothers, who were founders, built a machine which 

 shows many features of the modern reaper, and was prob- 

 ably the first successful machine of the kind. The cutting 

 arrangement employed in the first attempt at reaping and 

 mowing machine manufacture in this country was in the form 

 of a revolving scythe. The machine of Jeremiah Bailey, 

 in 1822, and improved by E. Copes and J. Hoopes, in 1825, 

 was of this type. Mr. Copes's son, writing of this machine 

 in 1854, says : " This was a very efficient machine, but used 

 chiefly for cutting grass ; and it would cut an acre in thirty 

 minutes better than it possibly could be done by hand." It 

 would seem that in this case the fittest did not survive. The 

 inventions of Obed Hussey, in 1833, and of Cyrus H. McCor- 

 mick, in 1834, first introduced the form of cutting bar with 

 vibrating sections passing through guards or fingers, as is 

 common with all subsequent harvesting machines. In Mr. 

 Hussey's first machine the guards were closed on top and 

 brought back to the finger bar, leaving no opportunity to 

 clear, and causing the machine to clog quickly. This fault 

 was remedied by cutting off" the back i^art of the upper side 

 of the guard. Many of the earlier machines were combined 

 reapers and mowers. The first machine which I recollect 

 was the one used by my father. This was a combined 

 machine, known as the William A. Kirby, bought in 1859. 

 It had one driving wheel, with ri^id bar. The frame of the 

 machine was balanced on the driving wheel in such a man- 

 ner that the driver could by changing his position raise or 

 depress the bar. By this means, and by means of a lever 

 operating a wheel at the outside of the bar, it could be raised 

 five or six inches from the ground. My father says of this 



