From this time forward independent English development of the reaper practically ceased, and reaper construction began to be influenced by American ideas and methods.
The first patent for a reaping machine in America was granted to Richard French and T. J. Hawkins of New Jersey in 1803. In 1812 a patent was granted to Peter Gaillard of Penn sylvania for a grass-cutting machine, which was the first of its kind in America or England. A more successful grass cutter was invented by Jeremiah Bailey of Pennsylvania in 1822. It was built on the revolving cutter plan. with side-draught and an arrangement for keeping the cutter at a uniform distance from the ground. Several other machines followed these, the most important of which was that of William Man ning of New Jersey, patented in 1831, which had a cutting device very closely resembling those of Hussey and McCormick, which after wards became important. It also had a grain divider. the first recorded on an American ma chine. At this epoch American genius combined all the best features of preceding inventions, English and American, in two practical machines, that patented by Abed Hussey of Maryland in 183:3 and that patented by C. H. McCormick of Virginia in 1834. These machines were very similar in principle. Ilussey's was provided with a cutter of pointed blades attached to a bar, which vibrated through slots in iron fingers projecting from the front of the cutter bar. The grain fell on a platform and was raked off by a man riding on the machine. It had no reels. McCormick's had a serrated edge knife with wavy outline instead of pointed sections as in Hussey's. It was provided with a divider and reels, but no seat for the attendant who raked off the cut grain. Both were side-draught chines. McCormick's was arranged so that it could be either drawn or pushed. These two machines furnished the basis upon which all successful modern machines have been con structed. They continued to be improved, but not until nearly the middle of the century could they be said to have achieved any practical success. They were entered in competition with each other and with English machines at the Exposition in London in 1351. Development was rapid thereafter. Both machines were introduced into England, where they influenced reaper con struction to the abandonment of the older types.
In 1848 Nelson Platt, an American, invented a self-acting rake, which swept over a quadrantal platform and left the grain in gavels at the side of the machine. This was the first of the sweep rake type, although numerous devices for de livering the grain in gavels at the side of the machine had been patented. In 1851 Palmer & Williams and William H. Seymour obtained patents for sweep-rakes over quadrant platform. In 1856 Owen Dorsey of Maryland patented a se,,lbrake which was an improvement of Hoff hein's type, invented in 1852. McCormick intro duced his self-rake in 1861, based on S. A. Lindsay's patent of 1859. In this, which may be taken as a type of the self-rake machines, a rake is so used that "during one part of the revolution of the gathering-reel it acts as one of the vanes of the reel in bending the standing grain to the cutting blades. When the rake reaches the cutting blades in front of the plat form, it ceases to revolve around the reel-shaft (which continues its rotary motion), and is made to move horizontally upon a vertical hinge, to which one end is attached (the points of the teeth being near the surface of the platform), sweeping the cut grain off at the side, and de positing it on the ground in sheaves ready for the binder." The first recorded attempt to bind grain by machinery was made by John E. Heath of Ohio, who obtained a patent in 1850, which was for a twine or cord binder. Other patents rapidly followed for machines using cord, straw, and wire. The most practical of these earlier ma chines, although not strictly a binder, was that known as the Marsh harvester, patented in 1858, in which the cut grain was elevated to a receiv ing box from which it was taken and bound by two men riding on the machine. This ma chine contained many features of the modern binder, especially the delivery of the grain by a canvas carrier over the drive wheel as dis tinguished from the 'low-down' type in which the binding device was at tached to the self-rake. In 1864 Jacob Behel invented the knotting bill, which, with slight modifications, is used iu almost all modern binders.