INVENTION OF UliAl'lNG MACHINKS. 



fell into disuse. Another has been lately devised in one of our Colo- 

 nics, which cuts off the heads of the corn, but leaves the straw stand- 

 ing, a fatal defect in an old settled country, where the growth of corn 

 is forced by the application of dung. Our farmers may well, therefore, 

 have been astonished by an American implement which not only reaped 

 the wheat, but performed the work with the neatness and certainty of an 

 old and perfect machine. Its novelty of action reminded one of see- 

 ing the first engine run on the Liverpool and Manchester railway in 

 18^0. Its perfection depended on its being new only in England; but 

 in America the result of repeated disappointments and untired perse- 

 verance, &c." 



We propose to prove, and by better evidence, and disinterested too, 

 than he then had, that in 1833. near the date of " the first engine run on 

 the Liverpool and Manchester railway in 1830." the American machine 

 cut the "corn" just as perfectly, with equal " neatness and certainty" 

 as did the " Novelty" or " Rocket " pass over the Liverpool and Man- 

 chester railway. We shall again recur to English authority. John Bull 

 is a right lionest and clever old gentleman in the main ; but he is rather 

 prone to claim what he has no title for — inventions.as well as territory. 

 We are willing to give him what he can show a clear deed for, but no 

 more. He beat us by one year only in the Locomotive; but we fairly 

 beat him eighteen or twenty in the Reaping Machine; and yet some 

 of his writers contend to this day that we ''pirated" from Bell and 

 other English inventors all we know! 



The excitement and sensation thus produced by the American 

 Reapers, caused renewed efforts on the part of English inventors; 

 some who had near a quarter of a century previously, been endeavor- 

 ing to effect this "great desideratum," to use an English editorial: and 

 the most conspicuous of these was one invented by the Rev. Patrick 

 Bell, of Scotland. Of the half a score or more and previous inventors 

 in Great Britain— Boyce, Plunknctt, Gladstone of Castle Douglass, 

 Salmon of Waburn, Smith of Deanston in Perthshire, &c., &c.— none 

 were waked up from their Rip Van Winkle slumbers; or if they were, 

 the world is not advised of it. They all used revolving scythes, revolv- 

 ing cutters, or shears instead. Several trials were made with Bell's in 

 1828 or 1829; and a very full and minute description with plates, was 

 published some 24 or 25 years ago, and may be found in Loudon's 

 Encyclopedia of Agriculture. 



It was, however, too complicated, too cumbersome and expensive, 

 performed too little service, and required too much tinkering and 

 repairs to be viewed as a practical and available implement. — The 

 English farmer found the sickle or reap hook preferable, for it was 

 every where resorted to. — The cutting apparatus of Bell's consisted of 

 shears, one half stationary, the other vibrating, and turning on the 

 bolt that confined them to' the iron bar which extends across the front 

 of the frame. The vibrating motion was given by connecting the back 

 end of one shear to a bar— making the bolt the fulcrum— and which 

 was attached to a crank, revolving by gear to the driving wheels. 



A reel was used to gather the grain to the shears, and adjustable, 



