90 
Report on the Trials of Sheaf-Binders 
being pressed oa to the pins by a spring frame. The binder-arm and platform 
cannot be moved by the driver; and in order to shift their position, according 
to variations of crops, bolts have to be removed, and then the range of traverse 
is only 4J inches. Improvements in detail as regards this point and the 
adjustability of the reel are desirable, and may, we think, be readily made. It 
will be seen from the description of the trials that the platfoiTn arrangements 
are too imperfect to allow of successful work. The corn, cut and well laid on 
the lower platform, could not be properly elevated to the tying mechanism. 
In other respects the machine is well made, and reasonable as compared with 
others, the price being 60^. 
The machine shown by the Johnston Harvester Company, of 
Brockport, New York, and 1 and 2, Chiswell Street, London, is 
described in the Catalogue as an automatic twine-binder, which 
is hardly sufficiently descriptive. A string-knotting machine 
would perhaps be more accurate. I shall endeavour to give my 
readers some idea of the construction of this very ingenious 
machine, which, complicated as it may appear, succeeds in 
making an excellent knot, which cannot come loose. The basis 
of the machine is an ordinary American harvester, from which 
the binding apparatus is easily detached for travelling by 
removing one bolt, when the whole gear slides on the frame and 
is taken off. This reduces the entire width over all to 9 feet 
8 inches, and makes it possible to pass this machine through an 
ordinary farm gate, which cannot generally be done. 
Some few details as to the general features may be admitted. The knife, 
4 feet 9 inches, has serrated sections, and is driven from its centi-e by connecting- 
rod and lever from behind the frame. The fingers are of wrought iron, with 
3-inch pitch. The horizontal platform consists of the ordinary travelling 
web; the elevator comprises two chains (malleable iron), carrying cross-laths 
of wood furnished with iron teeth. There is an additional chain, with similar 
iron teeth on the front side in advance of the knife, which is of use in carrying 
up the butts of the straw. The driving-wheel, 40 inches diameter and 
7 inches tire, comprises two iron hubs, 11 3 inches apart, held together by 
45-inch bolts, which, being drawn together, force the spokes, sixteen in number, 
set bracing, up to the tire. This makes a very strong and light wheel. The 
platform-wheel, 28 inches diameter, is of wood, with an iron tire. I hope that 
the mechanism by which the various motions are obtained will be understood 
by the accompanying description. 
Motion is transmitted from the driving-wheel by a spur-wheel, gearing into 
a pinion, keyed on a short cross-shaft in the rear of the machine, on the«ther 
end of which a bevel-wheel engages a pinion on a longitudinal shaft acted on by 
a spring clutch controllable by the driver, which throws out of gear all motions 
except the reel, which is driven by a sproggle-wheel and pitch-chain from the 
axle of the driving-wheel. On the rear end of the longitudinal shaft is a sproggle- 
wheel, actuating by a pitch-ciiain a second longitudinal shaft on the outside 
of the machine which drive;? the binder; next on the tlrst-named longitudinal 
shaft is a pulley, which also servos as tlie crank-disc for the knife, and which 
drives by a rubber-band the upper shaft of the elevator, and the outer roller 
of the platform -apron, tension-pulleys being aj)pli('d as required. The siiroggle- 
wheel on the second longitudinal shaft is thrown in and out of gear by a spring- 
clutch from the driver's fool, who can thus regulate the size of the sheaf by 
