CHAPTER IV.

AGRICULTURAL INVENTIONS.

Harvesting in Ancient Times.--The Sickle.--Pliny’s Machine.-- Now the Clover Header.--Palladius’ Description.--Improved in 1786.--Scotchman’s Grain Cradle in 1794.--The Seven Ancient Wonders and the Seven Modern Wonders.--The Modern Harvester and the Cotton Gin.--Requirements of the Harvester.--Boyce.-- Meares.--Plucknett.--Gladstone and the First Front Draft Machine, 1806.--Salonen introduced Vibrating Knives over Stationary Blades, 1807.--Ogle and Reciprocating Knife Bar, 1822.--Rev. Patrick Bell, 1823, Cuts an Acre of Grain in an Hour.--Mowers and Reapers in America in 1820.--Reaper and Thresher combined by Lane, of Maine, 1828.--Manning’s Harvester, 1831.--Schnebly.--Hussey.--McCormick, 1833-34.--Harvesters and Mowers at World’s Fair, London, 1851.--Automatic Binders.--Wire and Twine.--Advances Shown at Centennial Exhibition, 1876.-- Inventions Beyond the Wildest Dreams of Former Farmers.--One Invention Generates Another.--Lawn Mowers.--Hay Forks and Stackers.--Corn, Cotton, Potato, Flax Harvesters.--Threshing.-- The Old Flail.--Egyptian and Roman Methods.--The First Modern Threshing Machine.--Menzies, Leckie, Meikle.--Combined Harvesters and Threshers.--Flax Threshers and Brakes.--Cotton Gins.--Eli Whitney.--Enormous Importance of this Machine in Cotton Products.--Displacement of Labour. 32