Great as has been the improvement in corn machinery, even greater changes have come about in the machinery used for the wheat crop. The earliest harvesting implement used in Kansas was the cradle, a scythe with long fingers parallel with the blade to catch the grain as it was cut. The cradler laid the grain in rows. A second man followed with a rake and gathered the wheat into small piles, which he tied into bundles, using some of the straw for bands. The next machine was the reaper, which carried two men, one to drive the team and one to push off the wheat whenever enough had been cut to make a bundle. The reaper required four or five binders to follow it. It was soon improved by being made self-dumping, and later, self-binding. Inventions and improvements have followed in rapid succession, and to-day the planting and harvesting of wheat can be done with remarkable speed and efficiency. [Illustration: HEADING WHEAT.] The many wonderful inventions in farm machinery have made possible in the farming of to-day a great saving of time and labor as compared with the farming of forty years ago. There are few lines in which greater progress has been made. [Illustration: GASOLINE TRACTOR.] =Agriculture Between 1860 and 1880.= For several years after the Civil War the population of Kansas increased more rapidly than did the crops, and the country was kept poor. The destruction of crops by the grasshoppers in 1874 retarded immigration and left the people discouraged. Several good crop years followed, however, and confidence in the agricultural future of Kansas soon returned. By 1880 nearly 9,000,000 acres of land were in cultivation, a third of which was planted to corn and a fourth to wheat. The next largest acreage was in oats. A number of other crops were reported, including rye, barley, buckwheat, sorghum, cotton, hemp, tobacco, broom corn, millet, clover, and blue grass. At that time not a great deal was known of the soil or climate of the State, and we find in this list of crops several that have since been found unprofitable and are no longer raised in any considerable quantities. [Illustration: ALFALFA.] =Agriculture from 1880 to 1887.= The year 1880 found the people of Kansas full of hope and courage, and from that time until the drouth of 1887 agriculture developed rapidly. It was a period of new ideas and new methods. Millions of additional acres were brought into cultivation. The principal crops, corn, wheat, and oats, were each greatly increased. Fields of timothy, clover, orchard grass, and blue grass were planted in the central counties, and even farther west. Soil that a few years before had been considered unfit for farming was now producing crops. The State was being rapidly settled, many miles of railroad were in operation, and the excellent crops did much to encourage the “boom” of 1885 to 1887.