xx INTRODUCTION. 



MOWERS AND REAPERS. 



These implements, making so large an item in the manufacture, deserve a brief notice. The 

 great breadth of land devoted to grain in the western country has rendered mechanical appliances 

 for gathering the crop altogether indispensable to the farmer. But contrivances for that purpose have 

 long been in use. Pliny the elder, in the first century of our era, gives us the earliest description of 

 such an instrument in use among the Gauls. It was a large van, or cart, driven through the standing 

 corn by an ox yoked with his head to the machine, which was fitted with projecting teeth upon its 

 edge lor tearing off the heads, which dropped into the van. It is supposed to have been in use for 

 several centuries. 



The earliest proposal in Great Britain for an implement for harvesting grain was made by the 

 Society of Arts in 1780, when it offered its gold medal for a machine to answer the purpose of mow 

 ing or reaping grain, simplicity and cheapness in the construction to be considered as the principal part 

 of its merit. The premium was continued for several years. William Pitt, of Pendeford, soon after 

 invented a reaping-machine, suggested by the description of Pliny and Palladius, and described in 

 Young s Annals of Agriculture for 1787. A second attempt was made in Lincolnshire, in 1793, by 

 another person, whose name does not appear. In November of that year, two men named Cartwright, 

 each invented a machine for mowing and reaping. In 1799 the first English patent was taken out by 

 Joseph Boyce for a reaping-machine, acting on the principle of the common scythe. In the following 

 year, Robert Mears, of Somersetshire, was granted a patent fora reaping-machine propelled on wheels, 

 but worked by hand. In June, 1805, Thomas J. Plucknett, of Kent, received a patent for a reaper 

 having Hie cut! ing apparatus suspended beneath and in front of the axle, and the power behind. He 

 took out a second patent in 1807. Mr. Gladstone, of Castle Douglas, in 1806 invented a machine with 

 horizontal gathering-wheel, and the next year Mr. Salmon, in Bedfordshire, brought forward a plan for 

 raking the corn off a platform by means of a vertically-working rake driven by a large crank in the 

 rear of the machine. Messrs. Kerr, of Edinburgh, in 1811 introduced the &quot;conical drum,&quot; and in 1815 

 Mr. Scott employed rakes with a cylindrical drum, and projecting teeth, &c. In 1822, Mr. Ogle, of 

 Alnwich, invented the large reel or rake for lashing the uncut grain towards the knife, as is now done 

 in some English and American reapers. Some others were brought forward previous to 182G, in 

 which year the Rev. Patrick Bell, of Scotland, produced the oldest machine now known to be in use, 

 having a revolving apron or endless web for gathering, accompanied by Ogle s reel in front, which 

 attracted little attention, however, until after the London exhibition in 1851, when he adopted 

 McCormick s cutting apparatus ; since which it has been used to some extent. From the closing 

 of the fair in 1851, to the end of 1852, no less than twenty-eight patents were registered in 

 England ior inventions relating wholly or in part to reaping and mowing machines. Patents 

 had been previously granted for this class of machines in Russia in 1831, in Austria in 1839, 

 and in Australia in 1845. The last mentioned, introduced at Adelaide, South Australia, by Mr. Ridley, 

 reaped, threshed, and winnowed all at the same time, at the rate of an acre per hour; but its descrip 

 tion conforms very nearly to one patented by D. A. Church, of Friendship, New York, in 1841. 

 Whether from intricacy of construction, or other inherent defect, or, as seems more probable, from 

 indifference on the part of the public, none of these instruments came into permanent use, although 

 they provoked the opposition of agricultural laborers. 



The first American patent for cutting grain was issued in May, 1803, to Richard French and J. 

 T. Hawkins, of New Jersey. Their machine was propelled on three wheels, one of which extended 

 into the grain. Samuel Adams, of the same State, followed in 1805; J. Comfort, of Bucks county, 

 Pennsylvania, and William P. Claiborne, of King William county, Virginia, in 1811; Peter Gaillard, of 

 Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1812, and Peter Baker, of Long Island, New York, in 1814. The next 

 was the machine of Jer. Bailey, of Chester county, Pennsylvania, patented in February, 1822, which 

 was a rotary mowing-machine, having six scythes attached to a shaft. Four other patents were rt-gis- 



