Food & agriculture · 1831

Mechanical reaper

A horse-drawn reaper cut grain as fast as five men with scythes.

Cyrus McCormick demonstrated his reaper in Virginia in 1831 and later mass-produced it in Chicago. By freeing labour at harvest, the most time-critical step of farming, it helped open the American prairies to grain.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Factory system 1771
Seed drill 1701

What it led to 1

Combine harvester 1835

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Cereal yields in England/UK since 1275 Latest: Wheat: 7.28 t/ha (2024) Source: Our World in Data

Annual working hours in the UK since 1260 Latest: 1.67k hours per worker (2016) Source: Our World in Data