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FIG. 11. – SHAFT OF A LARGE MARINE TURBINE.

Within the cylinder are thousands of blades upon which the steam acts directly in the turning of the shaft. In the largest turbines there are as many as 50,000 blades.

THE PLOW

You have now learned the history of those inventions which enabled man to gain a mastery over fire and to use it for his comfort and convenience. We shall next learn the history of an invention which gave man the mastery of the soil and enabled him to take from the earth priceless treasures of fruit and grain. This invention was the plow.

In his earliest state man had no use for the plow because he did not look to the soil as a place from which he was to get his food. The first men were hunters and they relied upon the chase for their food. They roamed from place to place in pursuit of their prey – the birds and beasts of the forest and the fishes of the stream. They did not remain long enough in one spot to sow seed and to reap the harvest. Still in their wanderings they found wheat and barley growing wild and they ate of the seeds of these plants and learned that the little grains were good for food. They learned, too, that if the seeds were planted in a soil that was well stirred the plants would grow better than they would if the seeds were planted in hard ground. So by the time men had grown tired of wandering about and were ready to settle down and live in one spot they had learned two important facts: they knew they could add to their food supply by tilling the soil, and they knew that they could grow better crops if they would stir the soil before planting the seed.

FIG. 1. – THE KATTA OR DIGGING STICK.

For the stirring of the soil the primitive farmer doubtless first used a sharpened stick such as wandering tribes carry for the purpose of digging up eatable roots, knocking fruits down from trees, and breaking the heads of enemies. Such a stick known as the Katta (Fig. 1) is carried by certain tribes in Australia, and we are told by travelers that the Kurubars of Southern India use a sharp stick when digging up the ground. The digging stick is used by savages in many parts of the world and we may regard it as the oldest of implements used for tilling the soil.

FIG. 2. – THE FIRST PLOW.

The first plow was a forked stick or a limb of a tree with a projecting point (Fig. 2). With this implement the ground was broken not by digging but by dragging the fork or projecting point of the stick through the ground and forming a continuous furrow. In this forked stick we see two of the principal parts of the modern plow. The fork of the stick is the share, or cutting part of the plow, while the main part of the stick is the beam.

FIG. 3. – THE SYRIAN PLOW KNOWN AS JOB'S PLOW.

An improvement upon the simple forked stick is seen in Figure 3, which is copied from an ancient monument in Syria (in Asia Minor). The old Syrian plow consists almost wholly of the natural crooks of a branch of a tree, the only artificial piece being the brace e which connects the share and the beam and holds them firm. In this crooked stick we have three of the main parts of the modern plow, the beam (a), the share (c-b) and the handle (d). The plow in this form requires the services of two persons – one to draw the plow and one to guide it and keep it in the ground. It is said that it was with a plow of this kind that the servants of Job were plowing when they were driven from their fields by the Sabeans.

FIG. 4. – PLOW DRAWN BY HUMAN LABOR.

FIG. 5. – THE EGYPTIAN PLOW.

The first plows were drawn by the strength of the human body (Fig. 4). Upon a very old monument of ancient Egypt, the country which seems to have been the first home of the plow, we have a plowing scene which shows a number of men dragging a plow by means of a rope. But primitive man was not at all fond of labor and in the course of time he tamed wild bulls and horses and made them draw the plows. So upon another Egyptian monument of a later date we have a picture of a plowing scene in which animals are drawing the plow (Fig. 5). In this Egyptian plow we see improvements upon the crooked stick of the Syrians. The Egyptian plow, you observe, has a broader share. It will, therefore, make a wider furrow and will plow more ground. Moreover, it has two handles instead of one. Taking it altogether, the Egyptian plow was a fairly good implement.

FIG. 6. – PLINY'S PLOW, 70 A. D.

FIG. 7. – AN OLD SAXON PLOW, 1000 A. D.

Many centuries passed before any real improvement was made upon the old Egyptian plow. If there were any improvement anywhere it was among the Romans. We read in Pliny – a Roman writer of the first century – of a plow that had wheels to regulate the depth of the plow and also a coulter, that is, a knife fixed in front of the share to make the first cut of the sod (Fig. 6). But such a plow was not in general use in Pliny's time. A thousand years later, however, the plow with wheels and coulter was doubtless in common use. In a picture taken from an old Saxon print we see (Fig. 7) a plow which was used in the time of William the Conqueror (1066). Here the plow has a coulter inserted in the beam and there are two wheels to regulate the depth to which the plow may go. This Saxon plow is drawn by four fine oxen and it is plainly a great improvement upon the old Egyptian plow.

But improvements in the plow during the dark ages came very slowly. At the time of the discovery of America the plow was still the clumsy wooden thing it was five hundred years before. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, when improvements were being made in so many things, it was natural that men should begin to think of trying to improve the plow. In an old book published in 1652 we read of a double plow – one which would plow two furrows at one time. A picture (Fig. 8) of the double plow is given in the book but there is no proof that such a plow was ever made or ever used. The world did not as yet need a double plow, although the time was to come when it would need one.

FIG. 8. – A DOUBLE PLOW OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

(This plow was proposed but was never made.)

In the early part of the eighteenth century we begin to see real improvements in plow making. About this time Dutch plowmakers began to put mold-boards on their plows. The purpose of the mold-board is to lift up and turn over the slice of sod cut by the share. Without the mold-board the plow simply runs through the ground and stirs it up. With the mold-board of the Dutch plow (Fig. 9) the sod was turned completely over and the weeds and grass were covered up. This was the kind of plow that was needed, for if the weeds and grass are not covered up the best effects of plowing are lost. So the mold-board was a great improvement and its invention marks a great event in the history of the plow.

FIG. 9. – THE DUTCH PLOW SHOWING THE MOLD-BOARD.

FIG. 10. – A COLONIAL PLOW.

The Dutch plow was taken as a model for English plows and, in fact, for the plows of all nations. The mold-board grew rapidly into favor and by the end of the eighteenth century it was found on plows in all civilized nations. But the plow was still made mostly of wood (Fig. 10) and it was still an awkward and a poorly constructed affair. The method of making plows about the year 1800 has been described as follows: "A mold-board was hewed from a tree with the grain of the timber running as nearly along its shape as it could well be obtained. On to this mold-board, to prevent its wearing out too rapidly, were nailed the blade of an old hoe, thin strips of iron, or worn out horseshoes (Fig. 10). The land side was of wood, its base and sides shod with thin plates of iron. The share was of iron with a hardened steel point. The coulter was tolerably well made of iron. The beam was usually a straight stick. The handles, like the mold-board, were split from the crooked trunk of a tree or as often cut from its branches. The beam was set at any pitch that fancy might dictate, with the handles fastened on almost at right angles with it, thus leaving the plowman little control over his implement, which did its work in a very slow and most imperfect manner."

But about the end of the eighteenth century the world was beginning to need a plow that would do its work rapidly and well. Population was everywhere increasing and it was necessary to till more ground than had ever been tilled in former times. Especially was a good plow needed in the United States where there were vast areas of new ground to be broken. And it was in the United States that the first great improvements in the plow were made. Foremost among those who helped to make the plow a better implement was the statesman, Thomas Jefferson. This great man while traveling in France in 1788 was struck by the clumsiness of the plows used in that country. In his diary he wrote: "The awkward figure of their mold-board leads one to consider what should be its form." So Jefferson turned his attention to mold-boards. He saw that the mold-board ought to be so shaped that it would move through the ground and turn the sod with the least possible resistance and he planned for a mold-board of this kind. By 1793 he had determined what the proper form of a mold-board should be and had in actual use on his estate in Virginia several plows which had mold-boards of least resistance. Mr. Jefferson's patterns of the mold-board have, of course, been improved upon, but he has the honor of having invented the first mold-board that was constructed according to scientific and mathematical principles.¹²

FIG. 11. – DANIEL WEBSTER'S PLOW.

About the time Jefferson was working upon the mold-board, Charles Newbold, a farmer of Burlington, New Jersey, was also doing great things for the improvement of the plow. We have seen that the plow of this time was a patch work of wood and iron. Newbold thought the plow ought to be made wholly of iron and about 1796 he made one of cast iron, the point, share, and mold-board all being cast in one piece. But the New Jersey farmers did not take kindly to the iron plow. They said that iron poisoned the crops and caused weeds to grow faster than ever. So Newbold could not sell his plows and he was compelled to give up the business in despair.

FIG. 12. – JETHRO WOOD'S PLOW, 1819.

But soon the iron plow was to have its day. In 1819 Jethro Wood of Scipio, New York, took out a patent for a plow which was made of cast iron and which combined the best features of the plow as planned by Jefferson and by Newbold. In Wood's plow (Fig. 12) the several parts – the point, share and mold-board – were so fastened together that when one piece wore out it could easily be replaced by a new piece. In Newbold's plow when one part wore out the whole plow was rendered useless. Wood's plow became very popular and by 1825 it was rapidly driving out the half-wooden, half-iron plows of the olden time. Great improvements of course have been made upon the plow since 1819, but in the main features the best plows of to-day closely resemble the implement invented by Jethro Wood. Since our greatness as a nation is due largely to the plow all honor should be given to the memory of this inventor. "No citizen of the United States," said William H. Seward, "has conferred greater benefits on his country than Jethro Wood."

FIG. 13. – THE GANG PLOW DRAWN BY HORSES.

FIG. 14. – PLOWING BY STEAM.

The plow is drawn across the field by means of cables. Sometimes a traction engine moves along with the plow.

But the plow of Jethro Wood, as excellent as it was, did not fully meet the needs of the western farmer. The sod of the vast prairies could not be broken fast enough with a plow of a single share. So about the middle of the nineteenth century the gang plow, a hint for which had been given long before (p. 78) was invented, and as this new plow moved along three or four or five furrows were turned at once. At first the gang plow was drawn by horses (Fig. 13) but later it was drawn by steam (Fig. 14).

The great gang plow drawn by steam marked the last step in the development of the plow. The forked stick drawn by human hands and making its feeble scratch on the ground had grown until it had become a mighty machine drawn across the field by an unseen force and leaving in its wake a broad belt of deeply-plowed and well-broken soil.

THE REAPER

After man had invented his rude plow and had learned how to till the soil and raise the grain, it became necessary for him to learn how to harvest his crop, how to gather the growing grain from the fields. The invention of the plow, therefore, must have soon been followed by the invention of the reaper.

FIG. 1. – PRIMITIVE SICKLES.

FIG. 2. – REAPING WITH THE SICKLE.

The first grain was doubtless cut with the rude straight knives used by primitive man. In time it was found that if the knife were bent it would cut the grain better. So the first form of the reaper was a curved or bent knife known as the sickle or reaping hook (Fig. 1). The knife was fastened at one end to a stick which served as a handle. When using the sickle the harvester held the grain in one hand and cut it with the other. (Fig. 2).

When the sickle first began to be used is of course unknown. Among the remains of the "stone age" (p. 39) are implements of flint which resemble the sickle, while among the remains of the so-called "bronze age" many primitive sickles made of bronze have been found. Nor do we know where the sickle was first used, although Egypt seems to have been the first home of the sickle just as it was the first home of the plow. Upon the wall of a building of ancient Thebes is a picture of an Egyptian harvest scene. Two men with sickles are cutting the wheat. A man following the reapers seems to be gleaning, that is, picking up the wheat that the reapers have cut. Other harvesters are carrying the grain to the threshing place where it is tramped out by the slow feet of oxen. A primitive sickle such as was used by the Egyptians was used by all civilized nations in ancient times, by the Hebrews, by the Greeks, and by the Romans.

FIG. 3. – AN EARLY SCYTHE.

The first improvement upon the primitive sickle was made by the Romans. About the year 100 A. D. the Roman farmers, who were at the time the best farmers in the world, began to use a kind of scythe for cutting grass. The Roman scythe was simply an improved form of the sickle; it was a broad, heavy blade fastened on a long straight handle, resembling the pruning hook of to-day (Fig. 3). The scythe was swung with both hands and it was used chiefly for cutting grass.

FIG. 4. – THE HAINAULT OR FLEMISH SCYTHE, WITH HOOK.

For more than a thousand years after the appearance of the Roman scythe agriculture in Europe was everywhere neglected and little or no improvement was made in farming implements. About the end of the Middle Ages, however, improvements in the form of the scythe began to appear. In Flanders farmers began to use an implement known as the Hainault scythe (Fig. 4). This scythe had a fine broad blade and a curved handle. When reaping with this scythe the reaper with his left hand brought the stalks of grain together with a hook and with his right hand he swung the scythe and cut the grain. This scythe was an improvement upon the sickle but it was still a very awkward implement.

FIG. 5. – EARLY FORM OF THE CRADLE SCYTHE.

The Hainault or Flemish scythe was followed by the cradle scythe. On this scythe (Fig. 5) there were wooden fingers running parallel to the blade. These fingers, called the cradle, caught the grain as it was cut and helped to leave it in a bunch. In the early cradle-scythe the fingers were few in number and they ran along the blade for only a part of its length, but in America during the colonial period the cradle was improved by lengthening the fingers and increasing their number. At the time of the Revolution the improved American cradle was coming into use and by the end of the eighteenth century it was driving out the sickle.

FIG. 6. – THE IMPROVED CRADLE SCYTHE.

But even the excellent American cradle-scythe could not meet the needs of the American farmer. The cast iron plow which was brought into use in the early part of the nineteenth century (p. 82) made it possible to raise fields of wheat vastly larger than had ever been raised before. But it was of no use to raise great fields of grain unless the crop could be properly harvested. Wheat must be cut just when it is ripe and the harvest season lasts only a few days. If the broad American fields were to be plowed and planted there would have to be a reaping machine that would cut the grain faster than human hands could cut it with the scythe (Fig. 6).

FIG. 7. – THE FIRST REAPING MACHINE, 70 A. D.

So about the year 1800 inventors in Europe and in America took up the task of inventing a new kind of reaper. The first attempts were made in England where population was increasing very fast and where large quantities of grain were needed to feed the people. The first hints for a reaper were from a machine which was used in Gaul nearly 2,000 years ago. Pliny, who described for us a wonderful plow used in his time (p. 77), also describes this ancient reaper of the Gauls. It consisted of a large hollow frame mounted on two wheels (Fig. 7). At the front of the frame there was a set of teeth which caught the heads of grain and tore them off. The heads were raked into the box by an attendant. The machine was pushed along by an ox. This kind of machine was doubtless used in Europe for a while but it was not a success. It passed out of use and for many centuries it was entirely forgotten. Still, the first English reaping machines were made after the plan of this interesting old reaper of ancient Gaul.

FIG. 8. – OGLE'S REAPER, 1822.

The most remarkable of the early reapers was one invented by Henry Ogle, a schoolmaster of Remington, England. In 1822 Ogle constructed a model for a reaper which was quite different from any that had appeared before and which bore a close resemblance to the improved reapers of a later date. In Ogle's reaper (Fig. 8) the horse walked ahead beside the standing grain, just as it does now, and the cutting apparatus was at the right, just as it is now. The cutter consisted of a frame at the front of which was a bar of iron armed with a row of teeth projecting forward. Directly under the teeth lay a long straight edged knife which was moved to and fro by means of a crank and which cut the grain as it came between the teeth. A reel pushed the grain toward the knife and there was a platform upon which the grain when cut might fall. Ogle's machine did not meet with much success yet it holds a very high place in the history of reaping machines, for it had nearly all the parts of a modern reaper.

FIG. 9. – THE FIRST MCCORMICK REAPER.

English inventors did much to prepare the way for a good reaping machine but the first really successful reaper, the first reaper that actually reaped, was made in the United States. In the summer of 1831, Cyrus McCormick, a young blacksmith living in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, made a trial of a reaper which he and his father had invented – how much they had learned from Ogle we do not know – and the trial was successful (Fig. 9). With two horses he cut six acres of oats in an afternoon. "Such a thing," says Mr. Casson in his life of McCormick, "at the time was incredible. It was equal to the work of six laborers with scythes or twenty-four peasants with sickles. It was as marvelous as though a man had walked down the street carrying a dray horse on his back."

FIG. 10. – THE KNIFE BLADE OF HUSSEY'S REAPER.

Although McCormick had his reaper in successful operation by 1831 he did not take out a patent for the machine until 1834. One year before this (in 1833) Obed Hussey, a sailor living in Baltimore, took out a patent for a reaper that was successful and that was in many respects as famous a machine as McCormick's. So while McCormick was the first in the field with his invention, Hussey was the first to secure a patent. The machines of McCormick and Hussey were very much alike: both had the platform, the iron bar armed with guards and the long knife moving to and fro. The most remarkable feature of Hussey's machine was the knife which consisted of thin triangular plates of steel sharpened on two edges and riveted side by side upon a flat bar (Fig. 10). The saw-like teeth of Hussey's knife caught the wheat between the guards and cut it better than any knife that had as yet appeared. Both the McCormick reapers and the Hussey reapers were practical and successful and each of these inventors performed a noble part in giving the world the reaper it needed.

The McCormick and the Hussey reapers gave new life to farming in the United States. Especially was the reaper a blessing to the Western farmers. In 1844 McCormick took a trip through the West, passing through Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa. As he passed through Illinois he saw how badly the reaper was needed. He saw great fields of ripe wheat thrown open to be devoured by hogs and cattle because there were not enough laborers to harvest the crops. The farmers had worked day and night and their wives and children had worked but they could not harvest the grain; they had raised more than the scythe and sickle could cut. McCormick saw that the West was the natural home for the reaper and in 1847 he moved to Chicago, built a factory, and began to make reapers. In less than a year he had orders for 500 machines and before ten years had passed he had sold nearly 25,000 reapers. It was these reapers that caused the frontier line to move westward at the rate of thirty miles a year.

FIG. 11. – REAPER PROVIDED WITH SEAT FOR THE RAKER.

FIG. 12. – SELF-RAKING REAPER.

Improvements upon the machines of Hussey and McCormick came thick and fast. One of the first improvements was to remove the grain from the platform in a better way. With the first machines a man followed the reaper (Fig. 9) and removed the grain with a rake. Then a seat was provided and the man sat (Fig. 11) on the reaper and raked off the grain. Finally the self-raking reaper was invented. In this machine, as it appeared in its completed form about 1865, the reel and rake were combined. The reel consisted of a number of revolving arms each of which carried a rake (Fig. 12). As the arms revolved they not only moved the standing grain toward the knife, but they also swept the platform and raked off the wheat in neat bunches ready to be bound into sheaves. So the self-raking reaper saved the labor of the man who raked the wheat from the platform.

FIG. 13. – A SELF-BINDING REAPER.

Because it saved the labor of one man the self-raking reaper was for a time the king of reaping machines. But it did not remain king long, for soon there came into the harvest fields a reaper that saved the labor of several men. This was the self-binder. With the older machines, as the grain was raked off the platform it was gathered and bound into sheaves by men who followed the reaper, one reaper requiring the services of three or four or five human binders. With the self-binder (Fig. 13) the grain was gathered into sheaves and neatly tied without the aid of human hands. At first, wire was used in binding the sheaves but by 1880 most self-binders were using twine. So the self-binder saved the labor not only of the man who raked the grain from the platform but it saved the labor of all the binders as well.

The last step in the development of the reaper was taken when the complete harvester was invented. This machine cuts the standing grain, threshes it, winnows¹³ it, and places it in sacks (Fig. 14). As this giant reaper travels over the field one sees on one side the cutting bar 15 to 25 feet in length slicing its way through the wheat, while on the other side of the machine streams of grain run into sacks which, as fast as they are filled, are hauled to the barn or to the nearest railway station. The complete harvester is either drawn by horses – 30 or 40 in number – or by a powerful engine. It cuts and threshes 100 acres of wheat in a day and the cost is less than 50 cents an acre. It does as much work in a day as could have been done by a hundred men before the days of McCormick. Of all the wonderful machines used by farmers the most wonderful is the complete harvester, the latest and the greatest of reapers.

FIG. 14. – A COMBINED HARVESTER AND THRESHER.