INTRODUCTION. xxiii 



which wo have not ascertained the number, but we may safely conclude that there have been two hun 

 dred and fifty thousand reaping and mowing machines manufactured and in use in the United States; 

 the importance of which may be estimated, when it is considered that a common reaper will cut from 

 ten to twelve acres in a day of twelve hours, and a mower eight to ten acres in the same time. 



Another valuable implement for facilitating harvesting operations is the hay-unloading fork, with 

 which, by the aid of a horse, a load of Jiay can be elevated to the stack or mow in a few minutes. 

 Several varieties of these useful little machines are manufactured, and tens of thousands are already in 

 successful use. 



The wooden revolving hay-rake, (invented by Moses Pennock, of Pennsylvania, in 1824, and now 

 well known in all parts of the country,) also greatly lessens the labor of haying. Fine steel-toothed 

 rakes leave less hay on the ground, but for general use on American farms this wooden revolving hay- 

 rake is one of the most simple, useful, and efficient machines yet invented. On large farms, the sulky 

 wire-tooth rake is fast superseding all others. They throw the windrow into heaps or bundles of 

 eighty or one hundred pounds each, ready for cocking or loading. A boy and horse can thus rake and 

 bunch twenty acres a day. The hay-fork, or patent pitch-fork, is another recent improvement of value. 



For THRESHING AND CLEANING GRAIN, we have machines which are confessedly unsurpassed. In 

 our preliminary report we gave an outline of the progress of invention in this class of implements. 



Nearly all threshing-machines now in use have an apparatus for separating the grain from the 

 straw and chaff, and carrying the straw up on to the stack. This simple apparatus is now so common 

 that it attracts no notice, except from the English or continental visitor, to whom it is a novelty. Many 

 machines have also an apparatus for bagging the grain when clean. 



The English threshing-machines, especially those drawn by steam, have a much more finished 

 appearance, but for simplicity and efficiency they are in no way superior to those of American manu 

 facture. In fact, wherever the American threshing-machines have come into direct competition with 

 those of British and European construction, the American machines have proved superior. 



S Y T II E S . 



Although the genius of modern improvement promises ere long to rob haymaking of one element 

 of the picturesque, it has not yet wholly succeeded in banishing the hand-scythe and mower from 

 modern scenery. Tedious and laborious as its use appears, compared with that of the mowing-machine, 

 it is wonderfully effective in comparison with the rude practice of the Mexican of our day, who cuts 

 his grain and hay by handfulls with a common knife. It may not be generally known that the most 

 valuable improvement made upon this implement for centuries was by one of the first iron- workers of 

 Massachusetts, more than two hundred years ago, in the very infancy of the colony. In the year 164G 

 the general assembly of that province granted to Joseph Jenckes, of Lynn, a native of Hammersmith, 

 in England, and connected with the first iron-works in that colony, the exclusive privilege for fourteen 

 years &quot;to make experience of his abillitycs and inventions for making,&quot; among other things, of &quot;mills 

 for the making of sithes and other cdge-tooles.&quot; His patent &quot; for ye more speedy cutting of grasse &quot; 

 was renewed for seven years in May, 1655. The improvement consisted in making the blade longer 

 and thinner, and in strengthening it at the same time, by welding a square bar of iron to the back, as 

 in the modern scythe, thus materially improving upon the old English scythe then in use, which was 

 short, thick, and heavy, like a bush-scythe.* 



The introduction of the scythe and axe manufacture into Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode 

 Island, is to be in a great measure ascribed to Hugh Orr, a Scotchman by birth, who came to Massa 

 chusetts about 1737, and a year or two after erected at Bridgcwater the first trip-hammer probably in 

 the colony. He engaged in the manufacture of scythes and other edge-tools, in which he acquired a 

 wide reputation. His son, Robert Orr, by successful experiments, established the improved manufac- 



Bishop s History of American Manufactures, vol. I, pp. 476, 477. 



