HISTORY of the GRAIN BINDER

bu (Minnesota State Prison), Acme Harvester Co. All of the above
were absorbed by the I. H. C. except Minnesota and Acme. The I. H.
C. continued manufacturing the McCormick and the Deering machines,
also the champion for some years. They finally dropped the Champion
and then consolidated the McCormick and Deering and that has grown
into the present I. H. C. McCormick Deering line of machines. The
John Deere Company started making grain binders about 1910 and
later on added other farm machines to their line. Originally John
Deere manufactured only plows, discs, harrows and wagons. Deere
& Weber Co., made buggies and carriages with the slogan
‘Light running and durable.’

The Walter A. Wood Company turned out one of the earliest
harvesting machines and the machine was made mostly of wood. One
canvas carried the grain to a platform where it was bound by wire
by hand. My father had one of these machines before I was born,
about 1884, and he told me how a neighbor had borrowed it to
harvest his grain and he got it on fire and burned it up. My dad
and grandfather then had to finish their own with an old time
cradle. Another type of harvester is the Sweep Rake. This one was
another that cut the grain all right but it had to be bound in
bundles by hand. Some of the machines were used for flax harvesting
as late as 1906 or later. The Acme Company was the first to put the
grain binding attachment on a Header, but they were soon followed
by McCormick and later by Deering. These were 12 foot machines and
operated by 6 horses. In giving history of machines I give only of
the ones used west of the Mississippi River, no doubt they had and
used machines back east that I never heard about.

With the consolidation of several machine companies into the
Rumley Products Company, and the Emerson Brantingham Company, some
of the old harvesters were given a new birth, but I have not kept
track of them.

John Bushnell, Chicago, Illinois, is a very famous man in the
harvester world. He was president of the Champion Harvester
Company, Chicago. He is also (according to Ripley) the father of
the only SEXTUPLETS ever born in the U. S. A., a real Champion.
There have been no great changes in the modern grain binder from
the ones 50 years ago, except improved material in the
construction, ball and roller bearings for lighter draft, all steel
chains and open elevators for very tall grain straw. A 1900
standard Deering grain binder would do a better job in all kinds of
grain than anything built in the past 50 years. Deering started off
with the old William Deering and although a good machine in its day
it was a heavy clumsy machine with too many heavy cog wheels and a
horse killer on the draft. Next Deering came out with a
‘Pony’ and while this one looked good it was pretty much of
a lemon and in a wet field the drive or Bull wheel became a skid.
It was just about useless unless the field and grain were in
perfect condition. So Deering took the best parts of the Pony and
the William and used malleable casting instead of the old heavy
stuff.

They used the cutting bar and elevator of the William, and most
of binding parts of Pony and called it the Standard and that is
what it is in my book. Seventy per cent of the present day binders
are copied from the Deering Standard. The Standard had the canvas
slatted butter that always made a nearly perfect bundle and none of
the moderns can do this.

McCormick is the only company as far as I know who ever built a
right hand cut. I have never found out where or how they got this
idea unless it was from looking at the engines with the belt wheel
on the wrong side of the boiler. McCormick originated the bundle
carrier for their binder and it is the best that has ever been
produced in that department. It is now used on I.H.C. Company’s
McCormick-Deering machines. Some of the new models use the
McCormick head and some the Deering head which gives the farmer a
choice of knotters. Knotters to tie the grain bundle date back over
70 years and the McCormick bundle carrier 65 years or more and few
changes have been made.

The tongue trucks to carry the weight of the front of the binder
and lessen the weight on the horses necks were brought out in the
early 1900’s and later these trucks were used on other machines
for the same purpose.

The Plano binders had a balance wheel to help make the machine
run easier. When horses were stopped for any reason the balance
wheel continued to turn and would completely clean all the grain
from the machine.

One or more companies put out small gas engines to be attached
to binders to run the machines as the horses pulled them through
the fields. With the coming of small gas tractors, the balance
wheel and gas engines were soon forgotten. The horses were left out
of the picture too and the tractors took over. This started about
1914 and was the beginning of the end for horse-drawn machinery. In
ten years there were gas tractors of some make or size on
two-thirds of the farms west of the Mississippi.

I have given you my knowledge of the grain binder, or harvester
of the old days and in digging into past history of farm machines I
have helped to make the picture of the ‘Through The Years’
changeover.