THE CENTENARY OF THE REAPING MACHINE

Otago Witness, Issue 3802, 25 January 1927, Page 75

THE CENTENARY OF THE REAPING MACHINE

By

J.P.

(Fob the Witness.) The year just ended has seen the celebration of the average number of jubilees and centenaries, but it will be of special interest to farming communities, in that it marked the hundredth year from the invention of the reaping machine. Encyclopaedias briefly state that this machine was invented by the Rev. Patrick Bell, of Forfarshire, Scotland, in 1826; but behind this bald announcement lies a romantic story. For a generation people had been trying to improve on the sickle and the scythe, which had been the only implements for the purpose from time immemorial. Emigration and the growth of manufacturing cities had made it a little difficult to procure harvest labour than, aforetime. But, apart from that consideration, the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Cartwright in machinery for spinning and weaving had set the farmers thinking that an improvement might be made on the cumber some methods of labour in the harvest field. A reward was promised to any successful inventor of a labour-saving machine in this department, and from 1785 to 1826 several contrivances were brought before thej notice of the farming public. But these were all doomed to failure owing to radical defects, so that at the latter date Patrick Bell had practically a clear field and no competitors.

Phis inventor, whose contrivance marks almost an epoch in the perfection of farming machinery, was a “son of the soil,” and was brought up on his father’s farm in. the parish of Auchterhouse, Forfarshire. With a natural bent for machinery, he had been struck with the laborious methods of harvesting grain, and had given thought to the subject whether he could improve upon them, lhe flash of inspiration came to nim when using an ordinary pair of hedgeclippers. He went to the adjoining field of oats, and tried the clippers on the standing crop. Before he could make a model which would embody an ap’plication of his principle, he had to return to the university, but it ig.safe to say tliat his engrossing studies in theology, Greek, and Hebrew did not put the idea of a reaping-machine out of his mind. When home once more for holidays, he pursued his investigations further, and made a small model which would deliver the cut corn sideways. A blacksmith made iron cutters after the fashion e. his wooden models, and the critical time approached when the product of -his inventive brain would be put to the practical test. This was no public function with a crowd of sight-seers, but a private trial within the four walls of his father’s barn. He had wheeled in soil from the field, and planted an artificial crop stalk by stalk, treading the surface into a state of firmness. Perhaps the cause of his secrecy was the knowledge that within living memorv the ignorant mob in the spinning and weaving towns of England, had destroyed the new machinery and burnt the mills. However that may be, Mr Bell did not court publicity with regard to his invention—at least, not till he was satisfied with its efficiency. By main force he pushed his little reaper from one end of the barn to the other, and found that he had really solved the problem as far as cutting was concerned.

A few months more he spent on constructing a device to deliver the cut stalks in- more orderly fashion, and then he had to possess his soul in patience till the next harvesting season. That time having arrived, he put his invention to a further test—again a secret one, at dead of night, with only his brother as a witness and assistant. For the first time in history the sound of the reaper now so familiar and pleasant to listen’ to, was heard, and great must have been the delight of the young student when he found that he had really achieved success.

In our day inventions without number succeed one another in all departments of human activity, so that, notwithstanding their remarkable character, we have lost the capacity of wondering at them. But a hundred years ago it was different, and one would like to picture the admiration and delight of the first group of farmers who witnessed the work of the new machine, and declared themselves fair dumbfoonert.”

Two years later Mr Bell received a premium of £5O from the Highland Society. He went, to Canada for a few years, where he did work as a private tutor. But he returned to Scotland, and was minister of Carmyllie, near Arbroath, fiom 1843 to 1869. In a garret of his manse he kept a mahogany model of his epoch-making invention, and occasionally exhibited it to interested friends. In 1867 he gave an account of the patient experiments of 40 years before to a meeting of the British Association at Dundee Without doubt this product of his inechanical genius has conferred an immense' boon not only upon the agricultural communities throughout the civilised world, but on the whole human race. . In appreciation of the benefit of his invention the Highland and Agricultural

Society in January, 1868, presented him with a testimonial ahd gift of £lOOO. The two beautiful stained-glass windows in his memory in Carmyllie Church commemorate, we are confident in saying, not only his pastorate of 26 years, but his helpful services to his fellow-men as the inventor of the reaping-machine.