HARVESTING MACHINES

are mechanical devices for cutting and gather_ ing wheat or similar grains, and binding them into bundles. Some types are equipt to thresh and sack the grain in addition to cutting and gathering it. Probably the first mention of harvesting machines was made by Pliny in 23 A.D. when he described the Gallic ‘header’. It was not until 1806 however, when Gladstone proposed a harvesting machine that the attention of inventors was directed to this field of endeavor. Salmon of Woburn in 1807 devised a machine somewhat similar to Gladstone’s. Neither of these machines was considered practical and little advance was made before 1822, when Henry Ogle, also an English man developed a side draft machine. Progre thereafter was rapid, several models being presented in the following decade. In 1833 Obed Hu ey of Md. and C. H. McCormick of Va. presented machines which embodied the side draft feature and vibrating or reciprocating cutters and which may be considered the basis of modern machines. In these however the grain had to be raked off and bound by hand, binding machines not having been developed at this stage. Nelson Platt in 1848 and many others, followed with self raking machines, the grain being left in gavels by the side of the machine. The advent of the binding machine (see BinpING Macuines) in 1850, in which the sheaves were bound by cord or twine marked the beginning of the development of the modern machine now so widely used in the extensive grain raising areas of the United States and in other countries. These machines, head, thresh, clean and sack the grain in one operation. They are usually drawn by a tractor, which does the work of the 30-40°horses other= wise nece ary to draw the machine. Such a machine will harvest 60 to 125 acres of grain per day, doing in 10 minutes what it would take three hours to do manually.