fingers to hold up the grain, etc.—an iron case to preserve the sickles from clogging, and a better mode of separating the grain to be cut. Up to this period nothing but loss of time and money resulted from my efforts. The sale now steadily increased, and is now more than a thousand yearly."

McCormick, neither on this occasion nor on any other, acknowledged how much he owed to preceding inventors. Let us trace that indebtedness in a brief outline:

At the beginning of the nineteenth century Great Britain in mechanical invention led the world. For many generations her soil had never been trodden by an invader; her silver seas had protected her from the strife and pillage suffered by Germany, Italy, and France. Her mines were rich in iron for the building of engines, machines, and railways, and equally rich in coal for their motive-power. Following the triumph of Watt in devising his steam engine, her spinning-jennies had ousted her spinning-wheels; steam-looms in Lancashire and Yorkshire had sent handlooms by the thousand to the dust-bin. Why should British inventors stay indoors, why not invade farms and fields with machines to replace sickles and scythes? At harvest tide the weather was often wet, so that quick reaping machines would save many a thousand bushels of grain otherwise ruined by rain and wind. Then, too, such machines would save wages, always higher in Great Britain than in continental Europe. Thus it came about that mechanical reapers were again and again attempted a hundred years ago in England and Scotland. Most of them never went beyond the stage of models for experiment. A few were built in working dimensions, only to be cast aside as utter failures. Two or three types had merit enough to stay hard at work for years, and transmit their strong points to modern apparatus. Let us take up the chief elements in reapers as they were successively brought out and united:

First came the reel, somewhat like the frame on which

fishermen dry their nets. This presses the grain against its cutters. A" rippling cylinder" in the machine invented by William Pitt, of Pendeford, England, in 1786, was a reel of a crude kind. It took off the heads of grain and delivered them in a box behind the strippers. The reel in an improved form was introduced by Henry Ogle in 1822, and independently by Patrick Bell in 1826.

A reel presses grain upon cutters. Originally these were mere scythes, mounted radically on a spindle, and whirled through a crop. Joseph Boyce, who patented this roughand-ready appliance in 1799, was succeeded by an implement maker in London, Thomas J. Plucknett, who used a circular saw instead. This cut grain fast enough, but it acted merely as a mower. What was wanted was a reaper, a device much more difficult to produce. It was Robert Salmon, of Wo

PITT'S RIPPLING CYLINDER, 1786

burn, who, in 1808, abandoned saws and hit upon the mechanism which, duly bettered, is the core of every harvester to-day. He bade a long sharp knife glide to and fro across finger-like blades which firmly held the grain to be cut. All these machines at first were shoved in front of an ox, or a horse, as were the headers of ancient Gaul. Gladstone, a millwright of Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire, in 1808 invented the side-draught, as a much more convenient mode of propulsion. His reaper had a circular table, with strong wooden teeth notched below it all around, fixed immediately above the cutter and parallel with it. These teeth collected the grain and held it to be cut. After being cut, the grain was received upon the table and taken away by a rake, or sweeper, and laid upon the ground. Gladstone included in his machine a small wheel covered with emery,

applied to the cutter, so as to keep it always sharp. Joseph Mann, of Raby, in 1820, took the important step of gathering the grain when duly cut. He invented rakes which revolved on a vertical axis whose teeth, six inches long, carried off the grain in swaths. And now, says Robert L. Ardrey, in "American Agricultural Implements," * we come to the most original, the cleanest, simplest, and greatest single invention ever made in harvesting machinery, that of Henry Ogle, a schoolmaster in Rennington, England, in 1822, aided by Thomas and Joseph Brown, founders at Alnwick, near by. Ogle says: "I made a model, but not being a workman myself, and being on very friendly terms with Thomas Brown, a founder, and his son Joseph, I presented it to them." Reciting their first efforts, which were unsatisfactory, he continues:

"They then made the teeth, or guards, shorter, and tried it again, in a field of wheat. It then cut to greater perfection, but still not laying the grain into sheaves, the farmers did not think that I lessened the expense much. Mr. Brown took it home again, and added the part for collecting the grain into a sheaf (G, G, the platform), when he tried it once more in a field of barley, which it cut down into sheaves remarkably well. Messrs. Brown then advertised, at the beginning of 1823, that they would furnish machines complete for sheaving grain. But farmers hesitated at the expense, and some working-people at last threatened to kill Mr. Brown if he persevered any further, and it has never been tried more."

From the cutting it did it was estimated to have an average capacity of fourteen acres per day. The illustration shows that this machine had the elements of the modern hand-raking reaper and dropper. It was drawn from the front side; it was supported on two driving-wheels, and had an ordinary reel. It had a projecting bar with guard teeth, and a grain platform attached to the bar and behind it. * Published by the author, Chicago, 1894.

A, A, wheels, giving motion to all parts of reaper. frame of machine. F, F, F, F, reel. on which Y turns.

B, B, B, C, C, axle. D, D, frame of knife. E, E, knife. G, G, G, G, platform. H, H, lever. M, center Y, rod connecting wheels with knife.

[From the Mechanics' Magazine, London, 1826.]

Hinged, it was used as a dropper; rigid, the grain was put off in gavels to one side. "Its frame or platform, G, G, when hinged," said Mr. Ogle, "is lifted till as much grain is collected as will be a sheaf, and let fall by a lever, H, H, over a fulcrum upon the frame, B, B, when the grain slides off. It was found, however, better when the grain was put off by a man with a fork toward the horse, as it is easier bound and leaves the stubble clear for the horse to go upon."

From the position of the lever it is certain that a seat was provided for the operator. As the grain "was put off by a man and a horse,"-not raked, the forker probably stood on the machine; unquestionably as the machine was made for use in the field, it had a grain-wheel, or shoe, a divider and inside gatherer, as these had been previously invented, described, and publicly used. It doubtless had other parts to make it fully practical, for in closing his description, Mr. Ogle says: "I have given only a part of the framing, as most mechanics have their own way of fixing the main principle."

Another source of information and help to all concerned arose in Scotland. In 1826, on quite independent lines, Patrick Bell, afterward a Presbyterian minister at Carmylie in Argyllshire, invented a reaper with a row of clipping shears as cutters. He brought it before the Highland and Agricultural Society, who appointed a committee to examine the machine at work. Their report was favorable, so the Society awarded Mr. Bell fifty pounds as a premium for his invention, a model being placed in the Society's museum. Many years afterward, in 1867, the Rev. Mr. Bell gave the British Association at Aberdeen an account of his invention. The principal part of his paper appeared in the North British Agriculturist, of Edinburgh, on July 10, 1907: