66 
The Evolution of Agricultural Imiilemenis. 
binder of to-day. But this machine failed in practice, and the 
matter slept for several years. 
In 1867, Wood and Lock, adopting the Bell and Watson 
and Renwick aprons, added a wire-binding device thereto, and, 
after three years of experiments, produced a machine which was 
a practical success. The first wire-binder ever seen in Europe 
was exhibited by W. A. AVood at Vienna in 1873. Wme- 
binders by various makers were sold in large numbers between 
1870 and 1879 in the States, but the outcry of farmers and 
millers against wire as a binding material caused it to be 
abandoned. 
In 1878, the Johnston Harvester Co. exhibited a string- 
binder at the Royal Agricultural Society’s Show at Bristol, 
but subsequently abandoned the manufacture of this machine 
in favour of the “ Appleby,” next to be mentioned. 
In the same and following years, 1878-9, Appleby obtained 
American patents for a string-binder which has since proved 
very successful, and, being unprotected by patents in this 
country, has been adopted by all the English makers of self- 
binding reapers as a model. 
In 1879, Wood and Holmes produced their first string- 
binder, and this, together with Appleby’s machine, are the only 
practical self-binding reapers yet before the English public. 
In 1889, Wood showed, for the first time in Europe, a 
“ straw-binder,” which, substituting straw for string, made a 
promising though not perfect performance on the trial-fields 
at Koisiel during the Paris Exhibition of that year. 
The self-binding reaper is the most ingenious and interesting 
agricultural machine in existence. To describe it fully within 
the limits of this essay would be impossible, and the task is 
rendered unnecessary by the excellent account of the “Appleby ” 
machine appearing in Mr. Coleman’s report of the Derby trials 
published in the Journal (vol. xviii. s.s. 1882). Briefly, however, 
it may be said that the cut gi’ain is first carried to one side of the 
machine, and then lifted over the driving wheel by means of end- 
less webs. These deliver it to an incline, down which it falls until 
stopped by a lever which opposes its further progress. Against 
this the grain is “ packed,” until a bundle big enough for a sheaf 
has accumulated. Then the lever, which is arranged to yield 
before a pi’edetermined pressure, gives way, and in so doing puts 
the “ binder ” into gear. A curved arm, the exact equivalent of 
a sewing-machine needle, threaded with string under a given 
tension, rises from beneath the incline and encircles the bundle 
with a cord, whose end it leaves in the grasp of the “ knotter.” 
Finally, this clever device first ties and then cuts the string 
