AGRICULTURAL from 6 to 9 cents per 100 pounds below that incurred when a header alone is used. By applying a traction engine to a combined harvester, it is possible to increase the width of cut and thus add still further to its capacity. The machine shown in Fig. 42 is built with a cut as great as 42 feet, and will cut, thresh, reclean and sack 125 acres of wheat in one
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day, requiring eight men to operate it. It is undoubtedly the most economical machine in use for harvesting grain. Fig. 43 illustrates a harvesting outfit consisting of engine, thresher, header, water-tank waggon, and cookhouse, travelling from ranch to ranch, which gives a good idea of the scale on which this work is done.
Fig 42 —Combined steam harvester.
Fig. 43.—Combined harvesting outfit. Corn Harvesters. Until very recently, corn (maize) was harvested in America by hand, sometimes by breaking off the ears and leaving the stalks standing, and turning the cattle in to feed, and sometimes by cutting the stalks with a
Fig. 44.—Corn harvester and binder. corn knife and securing them in shocks. Within the last few years machines have been built for performing this very laborious work. If the intention be to leave the stalks standing, a machine called a stripper and husker is used, which passes the stalks between two inclined rollers
as the .machine advances, the ears being snapped from the stalks by the rollers and falling on to a travelling carrier by which they are fed into a husker, and from thence to a waggon travelling with the machine. If the corn is to be shocked, a machine of the type shown in Fig. 44 is employed. In this type of corn harvester a pair of inclined gatherers passes, one on each side of the row, picking up all down stalks, and feeding them through the machine by means of the gathering chains which support them as they are cut off by the knife. The stalks are then pushed to the rear by the packers of a vertically placed automatic binder, operating in the same way as a grain binder, to bind the bundle securely and discharge it into the bundle carrier, which retains it until enough is accumulated to form a shock. The bundle carrier is then operated and deposits the bundles on the ground. Another type of corn harvester cuts the stalks in a vertical position, as above described, but forces them over on to an inclined table, down which they slide into a horizontal binder, where they are bound in the same way as in a grain binder. The corn having been shocked, it is now customary to feed the stalks to a husking and shredding machine, in which the ears are snapped by rollers from the stalks, and then pass on to a cylinder having a series of knives, which split the stalk and tear it into small pieces. It is finally S. I. —23
