There was a cutting blade and spinning parts which would hold grain heads while the stalks were being cut.As McCormick began the demonstration, the machine was pulled through a wheat field behind a horse. It looked like it was a personal capital investment and the farmers acted as if they were the productivity maximizers. So McCormick's invention of the reaper made the possibility of food shortages, or even famine, less likely.It was said that before McCormick's machinery changed farming forever, families would have to struggle to cut enough grain during the fall to last them until the next harvest. A mechanical reaper is an agricultural device that harvests crops mechanically, providing an alternative to using laborers to gather in crops by hand at harvest time. His time-saving invention allowed farmers to more than double their crop size and spurred innovations in farm machinery.Born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, McCormick derived his interest in invention from his father, a Virginia landowner who patented several improved farming implements and worked without success for many years to perfect a mechanical reaper. In 1874 he set up a factory in Chicago, founding what eventually became one of the greatest industrial establishments in the United States.An astute businessman, McCormick increased his sales with door-to-door canvassing and written guarantees for his ready-to-assemble machinery. A mechanical reaper or reaping machine is a mechanical, semi-automated device that harvests crops. Born February 15, 1809 - Died May 13, 1884 Cyrus Hall McCormick invented the mechanical reaper, which combined all the steps that earlier harvesting machines had performed separately.
Six years later he began to license its manufacture in other parts of the country. February 15, 1809 May 13, 1884 Later models consistently added practical features, and McCormick's farm machinery business grew steadily. In the decades following McCormick's first attempts to bring mechanical aid to McCormick's father had earlier tried to invent a mechanical device for harvesting but gave up on it. The McCormick mechanical reaper replaced the manual cutting of the crop with scythes and sickles. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. The McCormick Reaper revolutionized Because farmers could harvest more, they could plant more. He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has bylines in New York, the Chicago Tribune, and other national outlets. By using ThoughtCo, you accept ourBiography of Cyrus McCormick, Inventor of the Mechanical ReaperInventions and Inventors of the Agricultural RevolutionAmerican Farm Machinery and Technology Changes from 1776-1990What Is Grain Alcohol and How Is It Used in Spirits?The 1794 Whiskey Rebellion: History and SignificanceNotable American Inventors of the Industrial RevolutionFarming and Agriculture Vocabulary for ESL Students
Thus, the mechanical reaper could not be rented or shared between farmers. The McCormick reaper for kids: Wheat in the North The climate of the Northern states was ideal for the production of wheat.
The machinery began to move, and it was suddenly apparent that the horse pulling the device was doing all the physical work. Patenting his invention in 1834, after Obed Hussey had announced in 1833 the construction of a reaper of his own, McCormick started to manufacture the machine on the family estate in 1837.
Confident he had worked out the tricky mechanics of the device, McCormick demonstrated it at a local gathering place, Steele's Tavern. A reaper is a person, or a farming machine, that reaps (gathers and cuts) crops at harvest, when they are ripe. ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. And that meant farmhands going off to war had less impact on grain production.
The machine had some innovative features that would make it possible for a farmer to harvest grain faster than could ever be done by hand.As the demonstration was later described, local farmers were at first puzzled by the peculiar contraption that looked like a sled with some machinery on top of it. McCormick's reaper, during a competition held at an English farm in July 1851, outperformed a British-made reaper. It was thus possible to have much larger farms, with hundreds or even thousands of acres.The earliest horse-drawn reapers made by McCormick cut the grain, which fell onto a platform so it could be raked up by a man walking alongside the machine. But in the summer of 1831 the son took up the job and labored for about six weeks in the family blacksmith shop.
Mechanical reapers and their descendant machines have been an important part of mechanised agriculture and a main feature of agricultural productivity. He ultimately started a factory in Chicago. By the end of the 19th century, McCormick reapers did not just cut wheat, they could also thresh it and put it into sacks, ready for storage or shipment.In the 1850s McCormick's business grew as Chicago became the center of the It has been noted that McCormick's farming machines may have had an impact on the Civil War, as they were more common in the North. Cyrus Hall McCormick invented the mechanical reaper, which combined all the steps that earlier harvesting machines had performed separately.
Rockbridge County is in the Shenandoah Valley, an area of Ulster-Scots settlement on the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. McCormick only had to walk beside the machine and rake the wheat stalks into piles which could be bound as usual.The machine worked perfectly and McCormick was able to use it that year in the fall harvest.McCormick produced more of the machines, and at first, he only sold them to local farmers. Cyrus McCormick (February 15, 1809–May 13, 1884), a Virginia blacksmith, invented the mechanical reaper in 1831. One farmer, highly skilled at swinging at scythe, might only be able to harvest two acres of grain in a day.With a reaper, one man with a horse could harvest large fields in a day. McCormick amassed a large fortune and invested widely in later years in railroad and mining enterprises.
The farmers assumed that their judgments as to the number of acres of land to plant small grains were autonomous of the reaper.