![]() ![]() In doing so, he brought about the greatest revolution in farming since the invention of the plow. What McCormick did do, however, was more important than mere conception: He was the first to demonstrate the labor-saving value of a reaper-and the first person to sell it on a widespread basis, across America and in other nations. Other men built reapers before McCormick, born 200 years ago in Rockbridge County, and other men manufactured them before and during his time. ![]() This combined with his marketing innovations would make him synonymous with a revolutionary farming machine.įorget what you learned in school: While historians credit Cyrus Hall McCormick as being the “father of the mechanical reaper,” the quiet farmer from the Valley of Virginia did not actually invent the famous grain-harvesting machine. Lots of people made and sold reapers in the 19th century-but McCormick made his more efficient than anybody’s. It makes me wonder just how many other inventions and forms of technology were lost during that time, and if they have all been recreated or we are still waiting to reinvent something.Cyrus McCormick, born 200 years ago in Virginia, was described by some as “cold, imperious and calculated to inspire awe.” Perhaps that’s because he spent his life obsessed with a grain-harvesting contraption known as a reaper. I had never read before that the Romans' first mechanical reaper technology had been lost. I admire those farmers who, even today, still reap crops by hand. While mechanical reapers do save a lot of time, they also can have a great margin of error. Who is the inventor: Cryus McCormick or Robert Hall McCormick? October 31, - Robert Hall McCormick came up with the basic idea for it, and then Cyrus, his son, improved on that idea and then patented it. Plus having mechanical reapers takes jobs away from people who might otherwise be able to make a living. And they are the ones who spring back much more quickly. Which might not sound like it matters much, but if you've got a good proportion of predators to pests in your fields, you don't have to worry so much about the pests. ![]() The mechanical harvesters not only waste a lot of grain, they are also very destructive to the ecosystem that gets set up in the fields, while harvesting by hand allows the field dwellers time to get away. So, yeah, I think that the mechanical reaper invention didn't deprive that many people of jobs.įebruary 15, - I do as well. Harvesting requires a high level of fitness and skill as well and it usually happens all at once, so harvesters can't go from farm to farm all year. ![]() When they aren't used, more people are needed to harvest, but harvesting is only a few days worth of work per year, particularly on farms without many different kinds of crops (and a wide variety usually means different kinds of harvesters anyway, some of which are still people). They increase the amount of farmland each individual farmer can work, which means that more people are required (in theory) to help with other tasks. Cool article, but who really did it? The father or son? A lot of other inventions have had the same questionsįebruary 16, - I can see that argument working with other forms of mechanization, but I think with a harvester it's much more difficult to tell whether they make it more or less difficult to get a job. ![]()
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