7 In the meantime various fairly successful wire-bind ing machines were put on the market by different manu facturers, but in 1875 John F. Appleby, who had invent ed a successful twine knotter as early as 1859, made a binding apparatus, which with subsequent improve ments furnished the basis for the binding apparatus of al most all modern binders, which are essentially a com bination of this binding de vice with the Marsh type of harvester.
The most advanced and complicated type of harvester is probably the combined header and thresher which is used to a considerable extent in some parts of the Western States and in Australia, where there is no fear of rain during the harvest. This machine heads, threshes, cleans, and sacks the grain at one operation. Machines of this kind are pushed through the grain either by a traction engine or by horses, thirty to forty of the latter being re quired for each machine. They have a capacity of from 60 to 125 acres per day. Headers are also made for use uncombined with a thresher. The cut grain is deposited by means of elevators in wagons which are drawn beside the headers. It is stated that as early as 1S50 a machine was invented and successfully tried in Devonshire. England, which stripped the grain from the straw, cleaned it, and ground it into flour at one operation.
The mower developed simultaneously with the reaper. In fact, many of the earlier machines were designed to be used either as a mower or as a reaper. A separate machine for cutting grass was patented as early as 1812 by Peter Gaillard of Pennsylvania. Hussey's original ma chine was really a mower, being bnilt on prin ciples afterwards adopted and developed in the construction of mowers. The most prominent name connected with the early development of mowers is that of W. F. Ketchum, who patented
in 1847 a mower of simple design. having a single driving, wheel. After the adoption of the Hussey type of cutter this machine proved a very successful mower of the rigid bar class. The first patent for a mower of the flexible bar type was granted to Cyrenus Wheeler in 1854. The flexible bar idea was further developed in n machine invented by Jonathan Haines in 1855. This had two drive wheels and a cutter bar jointed to the main frame in such a manner that it could be lifted over obstructions. In Aultman S Miller patented a machine which contained practically all of the essential features of the successful modern mower, viz. two driv ing wheels (the best types of modern reapers have one), the flexible cutter bar, with rapidly reciprocating blades, having smooth-edge sec tions, which was so hinged to the main frame that it could be raised and folded over against the latter when the machine was not in use. While combined reapers and mowers are made. separate machines for the two purposes are considered preferable. The modern reaper has been adapted to the harvesting of all crops, such as maize. rice. peas, etc., and modified to meet all sorts of conditions, and has enormously decreased the labor involved in har vesting. Consult: Ardrey, Amer•iccni Agricul tural Implements (Chicago, 1894) ; Stephens, The Book of the Farm, vol. ii. (Edinburgh and London, 1871) : Scott, Textbook of Farm Engi neering (London, 1885) ; Swift. Who invented the Reaper? (Chicago, 1895) ; Stabler, Overlooked Pages of Reaper History (ib.. 1897) ; Official Ret rospec•tire Exhibit of the Development of Har vesting llachimry at the Paris Exposition, 1000. United States Department of Agriculture Office of Experiment Stations, Bulletin t03.