Horse Reaper.

Implements Used on Irish Farms.

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Horse Reaper.
 

Illustrated below is a horse reaper this machine was drawn by two horses, in its time it was at the cutting edge of agricultural technology, prior to its introduction in the mid 1800's hay or grain crops were cut with the sickle and scythe.

The reaper was invented in 1831 by Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809-1884) The McCormick's owned a farm in the Shenandoah Valley Virginia, USA.

Cyrus is said to have built, tested, and then remodeled it for public trial, all within a period of six weeks, although it appears Cyrus's father Robert had been working on the idea of a horse reaper since 1815.

The idea soon caught on and spread across the American West, the reaper won the highest award of the day, the Gold Medal at The Great Exhibition held at London's Crystal Palace in 1851 after which Cyrus McCormick became a world celebrity and his reaper began to used in England, Ireland and across the world.

Timelines of Cyrus McCormick's Reaper

1824 At the age of 15, he invented a lightweight cradle for carting harvested grain
1831 Cyrus improves the reaper designed by his father Robert McCormick
1834 Patent issued to Cyrus McCormick as the inventor of the mechanical reaper
1847 A factory is constructed in Chicago to produce 500 reapers for the 1848 harvest
1859 Brothers Leander and William each receive one-fourth of the Cyrus McCormick & Brothers Co.
1884 The “McCormick Harvesting Machine Co” sold 54,841 machines
1902 McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. and others join to form International Harvester Company
1915 International Harvester markets its first combined harvester thresher “combine”.
1985 Harvester' s farm business is purchased placed under the control of “Tenneco’s” Case division.
1985 The remainder of International Harvester reorganized; its new name is Navistar International

Visit the McCormick web site

The cutting bar, standing upright in the illustration is lowered to the ground when in use. it was usually five ft long, consisting of steel fingers spaced at about four inch spacing, between these was the knife blade this consisted of a strip of steel onto which triangular blades were riveted.

The knife bar reciprocated back and forth, driven by a crank which received its power from the cast iron land wheel via a step up gearing. As the cutting bar moved through the crop the blades cut the stalks as they came between the fingers.

The cut stalks then fell behind the cutting bar, most of these machines had two seats, the rear one for the driver who controlled the horses and a lever which altered the the angle of attack of the cutting bar. The passenger sat on the seat on the right he had a long wooden rake like tool which he used to gather the crop in in sheaf sized bundles, this saved those following behind who's job it was to tie the sheaves having to gather the crop into sheaves.

To tie the sheaves the worker lifted the bundle and took a handful of the stalks and wrapped them round the waist of the sheaf, the ends of the stalks were twisted round each other about three times and the ends then tucked beneath the belt from the top. He moved on to the next sheaf while someone came behind him gathering four sheaves and propping them against each other to form a stook, this enabled the crop to dry in the wind and sun.

The paragraph above applies to grain crops such as corn wheat and barley, hay was allowed to fall behind the reaper and left for a time to dry, before being turned with pitch forks several times before being gathered and built into bart's (Rounded conical heaps) See hay rake.

While the reaper was revolutionary in its time its successor was to be even more so, the binder which was basically a reaper with added attachments not only cut the crop but tied it into sheaves with twine.

In this video the binder is pulled by a tractor, many horse binders were converted to be pulled by tractors.

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