Presently, however, complaints were heard of the wire tie. When
the wheat was threshed, bits of wire got into the straw, and were
swallowed by the cattle; or else the bits of metal got among the
wheat itself and gave out sparks in grinding, setting some mills
on fire. Two inventors, almost simultaneously, produced the
remedy. Marquis L. Gorham, working for McCormick, and John F.
Appleby, whose invention was purchased by William Deering, one of
McCormick's chief competitors, invented binders which used twine.
By 1880 the self-binding harvester was complete. No distinctive
improvement has been made since, except to add strength and
simplification. The machine now needed the services of only two
men, one to drive and the other to shock the bundles, and could
reap twenty acres or more a day, tie the grain into bundles of
uniform size, and dump them in piles of five ready to be shocked.
Grain must be separated from the straw and chaff. The Biblical
threshing floor, on which oxen or horses trampled out the grain,
was still common in Washington's time, though it had been largely
succeeded by the flail. In Great Britain several threshing
machines were devised in the eighteenth century, but none was
particularly successful. They were stationary, and it was
necessary to bring the sheaves to them.
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