AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 247 



automatic binder, the most effective of which is made by the 

 Walter A. Wood Company. It cuts the grain, drops it on 

 the platform, rakes it into gavels, binds it with a string 

 band, and throws the sheaf off for the gatherer; the most 

 perfect agricultural machine ever made, and a marvel of the 

 continued and combined ingenuity of many inventors. 



Followinof the mower is the tedder, a most valuable instru- 

 ment for spreading the cut grass, throwing it in the air 

 and leaving it lightly on the ground more rapidly and 

 effectively than can be done by five men with forks. This 

 was invented in England, in 1816, but never used in this 

 country till one was imported by the " Massachusetts Soci- 

 ety for Promotion of Agriculture," in 1858 ; since that, sev- 

 eral patents have been granted for improvements on it, and 

 it has deservedly come into general use. About three thou- 

 sand were made last year. 



The horse-rake is comparatively modern even in England, 

 and used in this country thirty or forty years, it is now re- 

 garded as a most useful assistant in hay-making, and they are 

 made in great perfection. About 100,000 were made last 

 year. Horse hay-forks for unloading are somewhat used, and 

 for loading hay ; about 10,000 machines were made last year. 



The threshing-machine — next to the reaper in the practical 

 operations of a grain-growing farm — was the outcome of 

 necessity and invention long before the ingenuity of man had 

 been able to solve the problem of cutting the grain by 

 machine power. 



Of all the implements of husbandrj^ the flail is the rud- 

 est and clumsiest to effect the purpose for which it is de- 

 signed ; and, though used for so many years, it is but a single 

 step in advance of the primitive method of threshing, in the 

 earliest recorded history of agriculture, sacred or profane; 

 that of treading out the grain by oxen or horses. 



The Romans, in addition to the treading of oxen, had them 

 haul over the grain on the threshing-lloor a heavy drag with 

 spikes, or a roughened sledge called a ^/7'6w^a — whence our 

 word tribulation. The practice of treading out grain by horses 

 after the manner of the ancients was in use in this country as 

 late as 1790, especially in the eastern parts of Virginia, Mary- 

 land and Delaware, and the planters there claimed its advan- 



