Following the reaping hook, not many centuries ago, came the scythe for mowing hay. It was but an enlarged reaping hook, so planned as to call into action the entire physical system, however, instead of the mere right arm, and with it a man was able to lay in swath many times more grass than had been accomplished by any previous implement. In America at the beginning of this century, the scythe had been modified so as to adapt it to the cutting of grain, and with it the straw was laid in a neat swath by the man who swung it, ready to be raked and bound by another. This, however, was nothing more than an implement. We read that machines were attempted before the beginning of the present century and are told by Pliny and others of a box-like cart pushed by an ox between rearwardly extending thills, and having a comb at front, adapted to pull the heads from the standing grain. A man walking beside with a hoe-like instrument scraped the heads into the box. It is no marvel that this implement, made by the Gauls as early as A. D. 1, did not come into general use. We also read that a machine was attempted in Hungary during the latter part of the eighteenth century, and that prizes were offered in England for a reaping machine. It is safe for us to consider, however, the efforts of Mr. Gladstone, of England, who, in 1806, produced a machine adapted to cut grain and deliver it in a swath beside the machine. With what success, we are mainly left to judge by the construction of the machine itself, which embodied many of the valuable elements of the reaping machine that held sway during the second third of the present century, only to be forced into the background by better harvesting methods. [Illustration: GLADSTONE REAPER.] In order to give Mr. Gladstone the credit due him, it is proper to say that his reaper, like nine-tenths of the modern harvesting machines, was adapted to be drawn, and not pushed, as the implement of the Gauls was. Its cutting apparatus was extended well to the right, so that the horse drawing it might walk beside the grain to be cut. It was supported upon wheels, one at the outer extremity of the cutting apparatus, and the other substantially in the position now placed in harvesting machines, and his cutting devices were operated by it. His machine was not only adapted to cut the grain, but deliver it at one side in order to make a clear path of travel in cutting the next round. His machine did not come into use, but was patented and thus made public. Whether practical in detail or not matters little, for he left to the world as a legacy the foundation principles of the reaping machine. Those who followed enriched the art only by additions and modifications. A second patent was granted to him covering improvements. His machine might leave the grain in almost a continuous swath or in gavels, which depended only upon the number of raking devices applied to his rotary cutting apparatus.