In the patent granted to Salmon, who followed him in 1808, is found a grain receiving platform, differing in no respect from that of the early practical reaper, a cutting apparatus placed at its forward edge, a divider to separate the grain being cut from that left standing, and an orbitally moving rake adapted to remove the grain in gavels to the ground. [Illustration: SALMON REAPER.] While it is of actual achievements that we shall mainly write, it is well to say that the actual achievement of the reaping machine was accomplished largely from knowledge given us by those early inventors, and it is proper that we point out precisely what they have taught us, for more than thirty machines have been patented in England and America before the machine of Bell, the Scotch preacher, of 1828, was placed upon the market in England. [Illustration: OGLE REAPER.] Kerr, Smith and others added their mite of knowledge, and in 1822 Henry Ogle, an English schoolmaster, invented a reaping machine that was made by a Mr. Brown, and which cut one acre per hour. The trial was so successful that the laborers in the field, fearing the competition of the innovation, mobbed the inventor and maker and broke up the machine. The patent shows its construction. The cutting apparatus of modern harvesting machines is a modified form of shears; in the early machines, shears, pure and simple, were arranged in series before the receiving platform. As cutting devices they operated well, but were objectionable on account of the fact that they did not clear themselves of shreds of straw and grass. Bell's machine may be considered the first practical reaper, because in it was found the essential combination of mechanical elements, not only of the reaping machine, but largely of the modern self-binding harvester. His machines were so successful that, as late as 1864, they were busy in the harvest fields of England, and laid a swath more perfect than any implement used before them; they were followed by a troop of girls, the like of which is still seen in the fields of those sections of England and Scotland where the modern self-binding harvester has not yet found its way. [Illustration: BELL REAPER.] The erstwhile Scotch student, when working behind closed doors on the little farm worked by his father, though inspired by high hopes, little dreamed that he was in any measure laying the foundation for greater results, and few, at the present day, know that one of the most essential elements of the modern self-binding harvester was reduced to practice by that youth who as the Rev. Patrick Bell administered to the spiritual wants of the members of a little flock in Scotland for many years. Two machines, at least, were brought to America, but not until American reapers had been perfected to such an extent as to meet all of the requirements.