HARVESTING MACHINERY 137 



length. The handle is bent at the upper end and is provided with 

 a leather loop, into which the forefinger is inserted to aid in 

 keeping the tool horizontal. The grain was gathered by a hook 

 in the left hand. This tool was displaced later by the cradle. 



Development in scythes has consisted in making the blade 

 lighter, lengthening the handle, and adding fingers to. collect 

 the grain and to carry it to the 

 end of the stroke. With the 

 addition of the fingers, the tool 

 was given a new name, that of 

 the cradle scythe, or the cradle. 

 And it was in this tool that the 

 first American development 

 took place. The colonists, when 

 they settled in this country, prob- 

 ably brought with them all of 

 the European types, and the 

 American cradle was simply an 

 improvement over the old coun- 

 try tools. The time of the intro- FIG - 104 THE AMERICAN CRADLE. 

 duction of the crad.e has been ^^^^^0^ 

 fixed by Professor Brewer, of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

 Yale, in an article written for 



the Census Report of 1880, as somewhere between 1776 and the 

 close of the eighteenth century. 



The American cradle stands at the head of all hand tools 

 devised for the reaping of grain. When it was once perfected, 

 its use spread to all countries, with very little change in form. 

 It has been displaced, it is true, by the horse reaper almost 

 entirely; yet there are places in this country and abroad where 

 conditions are such that reaping machines are impracticable and 

 where the cradle has still a work to do. Again, there are parts 

 of the world where the reaping machine has never been intro- 

 duced and where the sickle and the cradle are the only tools 

 used for reaping. It seems almost incredible that any people 

 should be so backward as to be using at the present time these 

 primitive tools, yet it is to be remembered that even the most 

 advanced nations used them for centuries, and apparently did 

 not think of anything in the way of improvement. 



185. The first reaper. History records several early attempts 

 toward the invention of a machine for harvesting, but none 



