REAPING (ante). Pliny the elder, A.D. 33, describes in Gaul a cart fitted with sta tionary combs, tearing off the grain and abandoning the straw; and Palladins describes the same, 391, unchanged in three centuries, but in its reversely yoked cattle and elevated platform foreshadowing the modern header.
The modern reaper, originating with 31r. Cape] Lloft in 1785, a' ma chine little in advance probably of the ancient "comb," received its legal re cognizance in 1799, in England. Various inventors followed; and in 1826 the rev. Patrick Bell, iu Scotland. built, and during 1828 and 1829 worked successfully, a simple machine, pushed by horses, and cutting 'by a series of scissors, and moving the grain into swaths continuous around the field, by an inclined sidewise-moviwz apron. Used from 1S28 to 1832 in Scotland, a single specimen was imported and tried by John B. Yates, at Chittenango, N. Y., in 1835. Its main feature, the sidewise-moving apron, is used in a modified form to-day. Before 1832 only eight U. S. patents were granted; and previous to 141, Hussey, and McCormick, all were merely experimental.
Obed Hussey in 1833 invented the reciprocating angular wave-edged knife, serrated now for reaping, smooth for mowing, and moving as one blade of a pair of scissors in as many stationary blades—double fingered, embracing the sickle above and below—as there were projections or serrations in the sickle. His reaper was tried iu Hamilton county, Ohio, in 1833, and patented in the same year. Following him, in 1834, C. M. McCormick, formerly of Virginia, now of Chicago, patented a reaper; farther improved by hint in 1845 and and in all adopted Ilussey's knife; but since the Hussey reaper, carrying a platform and support for the raker, rak«I directly rearward, the improvement of Seymour of Brockport, and Palmer and Williams in 151. changed the
platform to a quadrant shape, and employed a vibrating rake, from the center of the platform circle. After this Bell's machine again appeared in competition, in England, with Hussey's and McCormick's, in 1853. Following these, Dorsey of Maryland in 1856 added to the rake over the quadrant platform three additional arms, and made its motion continuous; and following him, Samuel Johnston of Brockport, N. Y.. placed rake teeth on each arm of the Dorsey rake, and a double coin guide-way to the pivot head. Thus the reel was abandoned, only continuing to be used with some special' machines; but from the invention,dn 1858, of the C. W. and %\r, W: Marsh harvester— a simple addition of an elevating device and raised table for reception of grain—the use of the reel revived. Slany varieties—notably the McCormick, Edward, and Adams and French slats to shift the grain step by step as an apron and elevator)--have all had as an object thecarrying of manual or mechanical binders; the latter using wire and cord, and freeing the former human binder for other labor. The wire binders have been proved injurious in leaving wires to go through threshing. The string binder, largely experimental, is destined to receive great favor; and every firm building grain harvesting machinery projects one. In mowers, simply cutting, the Wheeler type, invented 1854; the Buckeye, of the same year, invented by Aultnian and Miller; and the Ball type, all aim at flexibility. Ketchum and Kirby originated the one-wheel class of machine.