Tackling the Grass Mower Challenge

By Sam Moore
Published on June 10, 2015
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This 1865 Winslow Homer painting (
This 1865 Winslow Homer painting ("The Veteran in a New Field") depicts the way mowing used to be done.
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The Brown endless cutter mowing machine.
The Brown endless cutter mowing machine.
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An illustration of how Brown kept changing and improving his cutting chain.
An illustration of how Brown kept changing and improving his cutting chain.
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An 1890 patent drawing of Brown’s mower. Check out those large, economy-size oil reservoirs beneath the seat.
An 1890 patent drawing of Brown’s mower. Check out those large, economy-size oil reservoirs beneath the seat.

Years ago, no one but wealthy estate owners worried about having a well-trimmed lawn, and those who did had slaves or servants that did the cutting by hand. The only grass cut by farmers was for the hay they needed to feed their horses and cattle through the snowy winters. When grass around the farmhouse needed to be cut, the farmer turned sheep or cattle onto it.

For centuries, grass for forage was cut with a sickle or a scythe, raked by hand and then pitched onto a wagon or a cart for transport to a barn or stack for storage. This labor-intensive process assured that only a bare minimum of hay was put up – just enough to feed the farmer’s animals. In fact, a 2- or 3-acre patch, about the size of my so-called lawn, was probably a big hay field in those days.

A challenging proposition

When farm mechanization began during the early 19th century, machines for reaping grain took priority, although a few inventive individuals turned their attention to the problem of cutting hay.

At first, inventors tried to duplicate the action of a scythe. Several of these wicked-looking contraptions had a series of curved blades fastened around the perimeter of a horizontal wheel that was turned by gearing from ground wheels. One had what looks like a big circular saw blade. None of these were successful, but at least they showed the way not to go.

When Cyrus McCormick and Obed Hussey were perfecting their reapers in the 1830s, they both used a reciprocating toothed blade. Hussey devised the pointed guards that separated the stalks and against which the moving blade made a sheer cut. Most early grass mowers used a similar system.

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