Inventions
Reaper
Mechanical Engineering
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A reaper is a farm implement that cuts and gathers crops at harvest, typically cereal grains such as wheat. Gallic reapers, the first documented reaping machines, were used in Roman Gaul in what is now France. In the United States, Obed Hussey patented a mechanical reaper in 1833 in Ohio, and Cyrus McCormick patented his own design in 1834 in Virginia; McCormick's version became the more commercially successful of the two after he acquired Hussey's more effective cutting-bar mechanism around 1850, and mechanical reapers went on to transform 19th-century agriculture by sharply increasing harvesting efficiency and reducing the labor needed to bring in a grain crop.
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Cyrus McCormick, Engineers Why this is disputed. Patented his mechanical reaper design in 1834 in Virginia, a year after Obed Hussey's rival 1833 patent; McCormick's version became the more commercially successful.
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