Reaper (agriculture)

“ The children, too, are all helping. Before the season is over, they will collect at least three clear bushels of wheat; and if the weather prove showery, and the wagon is hurried to the barn, they will obtain a larger quantity.
Farmer Johnson is at the farthest end, watching his reapers. He looks pleased, and with reason, for the rustling corn stands thick, and the men work cheerfully. The Lord of the Field, (for such the chief reaper is called,) heads the long line of farming servants. When he clasps the opposite ears in his strong arms, they clasp theirs also ”

“ The labouring men used to tell me how they went reaping, for although you may see what is called reaping still going on at harvest-time, it is not reaping. True reaping is done with a hook alone and the hand; all the present reaping is 'vagging,' with a hook in one hand and a bent stick in the other, and instead of drawing the hook towards him and cutting it, the reaper chops at the straw as he might at an enemy. Then came the reaping machines, that simply cut the wheat, and left it lying flat on the ground, which were constantly altered and improved. ”

“ There are no more thousand-mile rides on horseback—no more conflicts with jeering crowds—no more smashing of reapers by farm labourers. The repeal of the Corn Laws in England had opened up a new market for our wheat, and the discovery of gold in California was booming the reaper business by making money plentiful and labour scarce. ”

“ The reapers are uniformly paid, by receiving a portion of the crop which they have reaped: this varies in different parts of the island, from the sixth to the eighth part, depending on the abundance or scarcity of hands; when the harvest is general through a district, one-fifth or one-fourth is demanded by the reaper. In opposition to so exorbitant a claim, the influence of the great is sometimes exerted, and the labourer is obliged to be content with a tenth or a twelfth. ”

“ Halters and a barrel of water and a heap of alfalfa for the mules, binder-twine and oil for the reaper and water-jugs for us are loaded into the spring wagon. Two mules are hitched in front, two are led behind. The new reaper was left in the field yesterday. We make haste. We must be at work by the time the dew dries. The four mules are soon hitched to the reaper and proudly driven into the wheat by the son of the old Mennonite. This young fellow carries himself with proper dignity as heir of the farm. He is a credit to the father. ”

“ The reaper had been primarily necessary in America, because here farm labor was very scarce, and the wheat fields enormously productive. In fact the growth of the newly opened Western country must have been indefinitely retarded if men had had to cut the grain by hand and harvest it in the primitive manner. The reaper was a very vital factor in the development of that country, and McCormick deserved the credit of being one of the greatest profit-builders of the land. ”

“ There would be a golden age of partridge-shooting in Old England did the climate and the price of straw allow of the adoption of the Ridley reaper. Under this system, South Australia grows on the average six times as much wheat as she can use, whereas, if reaping had to be paid for, she could only grow from one and a half to twice as much as would meet the home demand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [95] by men who followed the reaper, one reaper requiring the services of three or four or five human binders. ”

“ In the old days, and in many backward countries today,men cut wheat with scythes by hand. An American fastened a number of scythes or blades to a shaft and made a reaping machine that could cut as much wheat as many men. (See McCormick, page 1133.) The reaper not only cuts the wheat but gathers it in bundles with the heads all one way, and ties the bundles. It is really a reaper and binder. Men gather the bundles behind the reaper and stack them in shocks for the sun to dry the grain. ”

“ It is amusing to see these happy people enjoying themselves in the open air. As we pass, the reapers are seated near the road, in a barley field, at dinner, upon the ground, in rows one behind another, laughing and talking among themselves. When we meet them they are very civil, modest, and unassuming in manners. The men carry enormous loads of barley or wheat on their backs, while the women drive the loaded ass, and sling the children over their own shoulders. Their horses, mules, sheep, horned cattle, pigs, and dogs, are all admitted, together with the family, into the harvest field ”

“ I do not hesitate to say that when well managed, with a skilful hand at the rake, in dry wheat (I do not recommend it when the straw is wet) , it will, as compared with ordinary cutting, save per acre the entire expense of reaping, from the thorough manner in which every stalk is cut, thus preventing loss or waste.
"Believing, as I do, that a great desideratum to those who grow wheat upon a large scale, is to be found in Mr. Hussey's reaper, I cannot but wish that both he and they may reap the benefit of its general adoption. ”

“ It must not be forgotten that each crop the farmer grows is subject to its own pests. On a four course rotation each crop comes on the same field only once in four years. Whilst the field is under roots, barley, and clover, the wheat pests are more or less starved for want of food, and their virulence is thereby greatly diminished. The catalogue of the advantages of rotation of crops is a long one but one more must be mentioned. The variety of products turned out for sale by the rotation farmer ensures him against the danger which pursues the man who puts all his eggs in one basket. ”

“ 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 [93] 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 ”

“ A little of the straw is taken to the farmhouse, for use as litter in stable and pig-sty; the rest is set fire to as soon as the wheat is gone, and a great, unsightly, black patch is the last record in the field of the year's crop.
The worst features of the "header" are that the wheat has to be much riper than for the reaper or self-binder, and consequently more is strewed about the field and lost; the machine cuts the wheat higher up also, and consequently leaves more weeds to ripen and leave their seed. Its advantage is the greater breadth of its cut and more rapid rate of work. ”

“ It would seem that, on an average, during the last forty years, about one-half the nitrogen is washed out of the soil, or otherwise lost. I can not but hope and believe that, at any rate in this country, there is no such loss in practical agriculture. In Lawes’ and Gilbert’s experiments on wheat, this grain is grown year after year, on the same land. Forty annual crops have been removed. No clover is sown with the wheat, and great pains are taken to keep the land clean. The crop is hoed while growing, and the weeds are pulled out by hand. ”

“ The reapers are very careless, and drop much of the ripe grain into the water. The rice is dried in bundles, placed on frames that have been erected in the fields. The birds are kept away by boys, who are armed with long whips. On the end of the lash they stick a pellet of mud. When they crack the whip the mud flies off, and so clever are they at this form of slinging that they rarely miss the bird at which they aim. When the water has all gone from the fields, the long stalks that have been left standing are burned. ”

“ For at harvest a number of wild animals, such as hares, rabbits, and partridges, are commonly driven by the progress of the reaping into the last patch of standing corn, and make their escape from it as it is being cut down. So regularly does this happen that reapers and others often stand round the last patch of corn armed with sticks or guns, with which they kill the animals as they dart out of their last refuge among the stalks. ”

“ Three years later the Crimean War sent the price of wheat soaring, and the farmers had a jubilee of prosperity. Away went the log-cabin, the ox-cart, the grain-cradle, and the flail. In came the frame house, the spring buggy, the reaper, and the thresher. The farmers began to buy labour-saving devices. Better still, they began to invent them.
There is one farm-bred man, named R. C. Haskins, in the Harvester Building in Chicago, who, in his thirty years of salesmanship, has supervised the selling of $275,000,000 worth of harvesters to American farmers. ”

“ Harvesting had commenced in real earnest, and the wheat-fields were full of reapers, some wielding the sickle, others the scythe. When I saw men and women bending almost double to cut their sheaves close to the ground, I longed to walk through a barley-field with one of our American cradles, and show them how we do that sort of thing. As yet I have seen no reaping machines in operation, and I doubt if they will ever come into such extensive use here as with us, owing to the abundance of cheap labor in this country. ”

“ The injury from disease and insects is kept down to a minimum. There is better distribution of the labor required by the farm, and neglect of crops at critical times is escaped. The maintenance of fertility is dependent much upon the use of a legume that will furnish nitrogen from the air. A permanently successful agriculture in our country must be based upon the use of legumes, and crop-rotations would be demanded for this reason alone if none other existed. ”

“ O. Hussey's Reaper; the wheat was so badly lodged that no McCormick Reaper or Cradle could cut it; Mr. Hussey's Reaper cut it clean and laid the bundles out of the track in good order for binding. I have seen the work done by this machine in grass; it was as good work as ever I saw done by a scythe, or better. For my choice I should rather have my grass cut by the Reaper than by the scythe. Every farmer ought to have such a machine, and every farmer I hear talk about it says the same. ”

“ At Gommern, near Magdeburg, the reaper who cuts the last ears of corn is often wrapt up in corn-stalks so completely that it is hard to see whether there is a man in the bundle or not. Thus wrapt up he is taken by another stalwart reaper on his back, and carried round the field amidst the joyous cries of the harvesters. ”

“ Whatever be the succeeding crop, it cannot fail to be productive; and if the land is not clean, the farmer must have neglected the double opportunity of destroying weeds in the preceding summer, and in the early part of spring. If the rape is fed off in time, it may be succeeded by barley or oats, with clover or grass seeds, or potatoes, if the soil is not too wet. Thus no crop will be lost, and the rape will have been a clear addition to the produce of the land. ”

“ As [96] 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. ”

“ It is a busy afternoon, and in a field of ripening grain reapers are busy wielding their sickles, but they are not the strong men who talk with loud, rough voices and bind the sheaves with joke and laughter; they are gentle spirits moving like clouds, and their sickles seem like little strokes of lightning as they slide musically through the golden grain. Their shining hands keep time to a beautiful song, and often the reapers glance across the gleaming rows of grain into the rich red of the sunset. ”

“ Wonderful improvements have been made in the reaper. There are great machines now on the prairie lands of the west which cut the grain, thresh it, and carry it from the fields in sacks ready for the mill. ”

“ Rotation helps to maintain or increase the plant food in the surface soil. When crops like cowpeas or clover which take mineral food from the subsoil and nitrogen from the air, are plowed under, they give up the plant food in their leaves, stems and upper roots to the surface soil, and thus help to maintain or increase fertility.
Rotation tends to protect crops from injurious insects and diseases. If one kind of crop is grown continuously on one piece of land the soil becomes infested with the insects and diseases which injure that particular crop. ”