244 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the immense fields of corn, potatoes and roots in some 

 parts of our country, seem indispensable. 



Of all agricultural operations, that which for years seemed 

 to baffle invention, and to stand in its original simplicity while 

 other operations on the farm were lightened in labor and en- 

 larged in capacity, was that of mowing and of reaping. 



The lines of the plough had been lengthened and beau- 

 tified almost to the perfection of the implement ; harrows, roll- 

 ers, clocl-crushers and pidverizers for reducing the soil to the 

 required condition for tilth ; seed-sowers and planters for 

 uniformly and rapidly dropping the seeds ; horse-hoes, 

 scarifiers and cultivators for cleaning and aiding the growing 

 crops ; tedders and horse-rakes for the hay crop ; and for the 

 grain, threshing and winnowing machines by the score had 

 been brought forth and were multiplied ; but the invention of 

 man had not been able to conceive anything to supersede the 

 original sickle and reaping-hook, and the primitive scythe 

 remained just as Joseph Jenks of Lynn, in the province of 

 Massachusetts Bay, made it in 1655, in which year he received 

 a patent from the General Court " for welding a bar of iron 

 on the back of the sc^^the blade to strengthen it and give it 

 greater length, thinness and capacity of cutting"; and that 

 scythe has descended to us of this day unchanged. 



After many abortive attempts, both in Great Britain and in 

 this country, to make a harvesting machine that would be 

 satisfactory, the first really successful one was invented in 

 Scotland by Mr. Patrick Bell, in 1827. 



The history of Mr. Bell's invention and the difficulties he 

 experienced in perfecting it and making a working machine is 

 so interesting that I will give it in a brief form : — 



In the summer of 1827, while on his father's farm where he 

 had been brought up, having been recently graduated at a 

 university, he was much impressed with the amount of hard 

 labor in the hay and harvest field, and gave his whole atten- 

 tion to devise some way to lighten it. Scheme after scheme 

 had been canvassed and been rejected, and he was almost in 

 despair of accomplishing it, when one evening in his father's 

 garden he chanced to notice a pair of hedge shears. His 

 mind full of the subject, it flashed across him that there was 

 the principle that must succeed. 



