Economic History Association
The Mechanization of Reaping and Mowing in American Agriculture, 1833-1870
Author(s): Alan L. Olmstead
Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Jun., 1975), pp. 327-352
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association
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The Mechanizationof Reaping and Mowing
in American Agriculture, 1833-1870
INRTODUCTION
T
HE successfuldemonstration
of reapingmachinesby Obed
Hussey and Cyrus McCormickin 1833 and 1834 inaugurated
a long series of events that eventuallyrevolutionizedthe harvesting
of small grains and grasses, drasticallyaltering the lives and productivity of grain farmers. Given the ultimate success and widespread impact of the reaping machine, historianshave long pondered why almost twenty years elapsed between the date when
Obed Hussey sold his first machine in 1833 and the first wave of
popular acceptance in the mid-1850's. Why did it take twenty
years for a significantnumberof farmersto begin to exchangetheir
cradles and scythes for reapers and mowers?What importanteconomic and technological factors governed the initial diffusion of
this invention?These are importanthistoricalquestions,the answers
to which can significantlyinfluenceour broaderperceptionsof the
problemof technologicaldiffusion.
Of the numerousattempts to answer these questions, none has
been so systematicor rigorousas that of Paul David in his widely
read and acclaimed article, "The Mechanization of Reaping in
The Ante-BellumMidwest."'David first postulatesthat there were
no productivity-increasing
technologicalchanges,that reaperscould
I have benefited from the comments of Wayne Rasmussen, Morton Rothstein,
Morgan Sherwood, James Shideler, Hiromitsu Kaneda, Victor Goldberg, William
Moss, C. Daniel Vencill, Robert Ankli, Robert Higgs, Rondo Cameron, Richard
Rosenberg, and Philip Coelho. Brian Burwell, Richard Bryant, Rory Phillips, Robert
Enholm, and James Yerkes assisted in the research. I would aso like to thank
Donald Kunitz and his staff at the Higgins Library of Agricultural Technology for
their assistance.
1 Paul A. David, "The Mechanization of Reaping in the Ante-Bellum Midwest,"
in Henry Rosovsky (ed.), Industrialization in Two Systems: Essays in Honor of
Alexander Gerschenkron (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966), pp. 3-39. (Hereafter cited as David, "Midwest.") Recently David has applied a similar, albeit far
more sophisticated, model to explain the diffusion of reapers in Britain. Paul A.
David, "The Landscape and the Machine: Technical Interrelatedness,Land Tenure
and the Mechanization of the Corn Harvest in Victorian Britain," in Donald N.
McCloskey (ed.), Essays on a Mature Economy: Britain after 1840 (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1971), Ap 145-205, and "Discussion 5," pp. 206-214.
(Hereafter cited as David, "Britain.)
327
328
Olmstead
not be shared or rented and thus representedan indivisible fixed
capital investmentto individualfarmers,and that farmersbehaved
as if they were profit maximizers.He also implicitly assumes that
each farmer'sdecision as to how many acres to plant in small grains
was made independentof the reaper.Given these assumptionsand
given knowledge of costs, David calculates a break-evenpoint or
thresholdsize farmat which adoptionwill take place. He found that
in the period 1849-53the gap between the requiredthresholdand
the actualaverageacreagein smallgrainswas over twenty-oneacres,
but that the gap fell to only five acresby the period 1854-57.It was
this precipitousclosing of the gap between the actual and threshold
acreage that accounts for the sudden diffusion of reapers in the
mid-1850's.This explanation is appealing in part because of its
simplicity.David has cut throughthe fog of confusionby explaining
the timing and pace of diffusionwithin the context of a simple comparativestatic model which focuses on relativefactor costs.
This article argues that we need to reconsiderboth the factors
governing diffusion of this invention and the general lessons that
have found their way from the reaper literatureinto the broader
discussionsof technological change and diffusion. There are two
major themes. First, sharing and contracting were economically
feasible and widely practiced. Second, a myriad of improvements
in reaperdesign profoundlyaffected machine productivityand diffusion.
If farmers could share or rent reapers and mowers, then the
thresholdargument,as presentlyconstituted,is renderedinoperative.
There would still be a break-evenpoint at which it would pay to
adopt a reaper, but this threshold would only apply to the total
acreage cut by the machine.A reductionin the thresholdresulting
from changes in relative factor prices or in the technical parameters of the model would still facilitate adoption,but one could no
longer explaindiffusionby comparingthe thresholdwith the actual
acreagein small grainson each farm.
An alternative argumentto explain the diffusion of reapers requires that we fuse the essential elements of David's model with
the emphasisthat Hutchinson,Rogin, Ardrey,and othersplaced on
technologicalchange.2If we combine David'sAmericanand British
2 William T. Hutchinson, Cyrus Hall McCormick: Seed-Time, 1809-1856 (New
York & London: The Century Co., 1930), (hereafter cited as Hutchinson, Seed);
Reaping and Mowing
329
studies, we must conclude that there were no significanttechnological advances in what he calls the "basicreaper"between 1833
and the 1870's.This assumption probablyhas been the single most
importantconclusion to find its way from the reaper literatureto
more general discussionsof technologicaldiffusion.The example of
the reaperhas become the economichistorians'best paradigmof delayed diffusion:the machinewas born fully developed, only to wait
in the wings for twenty years before changingfactor costs led to its
diffusion.Rosenberg,who perhaps more than any other economic
historian has perceived the importance of changing supply conditions and in particulartechnical refinementsin explaining diffusion, actually singles out the reaper as a counter example of the
general trend. "[David's]study derives much interest from the historical fact that the mechanical reaper had been available for
twenty yearsbefore the suddenbeginningof its rapid adoptionafter
1853."3What started as an unsupportedassumptionhas grown into
an "historicalfact,"even thoughit is in direct contradictionwith the
neglected opinion of the extremelyknowledgeablehistorianswho
emphasizedhow a host of technical changes transformedan experimentally crude, heavy, unwieldy, and unreliableprototype of the
1830'sinto the relativelyfinely engineeredmachineryof the 1860's.
To understandthe delayed diffusionof the reaperrequiresthat more
emphasis be placed on improved reaper design, which increased
machine longevity, versatility, and productivity and reduced the
risks and uncertainty of breakdowns.
Before turningto these twin themes of sharingand technological
change, it is worth considering a narrowerquestion. Within the
comparativestatic frameworkhow sensitive are the thresholdcalculations to changes in parametervalues? If minor variationsin key
parametershave a substantialimpact on thresholdcalculations,then
William T. Hutchinson, Cyrus Hall McCormick: Harvest, 1856-1884 (New York:
D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1935), (hereafter cited as Hutchinson, Harvest); Leo Rogin, The Introduction of Farm Machinery in Relation to the Productivity of Labor in the Agriculture of the United States During the Nineteenth
Century (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1931); R. L. Ardrey,
American Farm Implements: A Review of Invention and Development in the Agricultural Implement Industry of the United States (Chicago: by the author, 1894).
3 Nathan Rosenberg, Technology and American Economic Growth (New York:
Harper and Row, 1972), p. 132, fn. 26. Also see p. 169, fn. 74, and Robert William
Fogel, "The New Economic History: Its Findings and Methods," The Economic
History Review., XIX (December 1966), 649.
330
Olmstead
it is necessaryto criticallyevaluate these parametersin light of the
extant historicalevidence.
THRESHOLD SENSIVrrITY
Figure 1 offersan indicationof the sensitivityof thresholdvalues
to changes in two parameters.Lines T1 and T2 illustratehow the
thresholdfarm size varies with changes in the depreciationparameter (d) for periods I (1849-53 and II (1854-57) respectively.
FIGURE 1
THRESHOLD SENSITIVITY TO CHANGES IN THE RATE OF INTEREST
AND THE DEPRECIATION PERIODa
WI W2
T,
T,
T
1854-1857
0.20
g
015
Y79
~
~
~
~
~
~
//o
\
^
//
T
eT(5 yrs.)
E
0.15
o
/
Source:
/ee
0.10
(10 yrs.)/
/A
1849-1853
0.05/
//
30
50
70
90
Threshold(Acres)
a T. and T2 assume a rate of interest of 6 percent. T.3 and T4 assume a rate of
interest of 10 percent. Points A and B denote David's threshold calculations. WI.
and W2 show the average acreage in small grains on farms in selected Illinois counties at the beginning and end of the 1850's respectively.
Source: See text and David, "Midwest," pp. 28-37.
Reaping and Mowing
331
Lines T3 and T4 also show the relationshipbetween the threshold
and the depreciationparameterbut assume an interest rate (r) of
ten percent instead of the six percent rate used by David. Points A
and B denote David's calculations (using d = .10 and r =6 percent). Points Y and Z denote what appearto be at least as plausible
calculations(using d .20 and r = 10 percent). It can readily be
seen that with these adjustmentsthe thresholdsmore than double
in both periods. Even more noteworthy,the revised period II calculation pertainingto a period when reapers were being adopted
results in a gap between the actual acreage and the threshold of
almost forty acres. This gap is more than twice as large as David
found in period I, and about eight times that found in period II.
Given the magnitudeof these discrepanciesand their adverseimplicationsfor the accepted explanationof reaperdiffusion,it would
be useful to investigatemore thoroughlythe questionsof what the
usual life of a reaperwas, and what the relevant discountrate was.
The estimatethat the useful life of a reaperwas ten yearsrests upon
two sources-Hutchinson and Rogin.4Hutchinsonnotes that "With
good care the reaperwould harvest one hundred acres per year for
ten years,"but elsewherehe claims that reapershad "a life of from
five to ten years.
. .
." More important, Hutchinson is explicit in
notingthat reapersoften did not receive the "goodcare"requiredfor
a life of ten years.5Rogin states "thata machine even at that time
lasted very close to ten years. . . ."6 But his remark refers to the
decades of the 1870'sand 1880's,a period when the machinery,the
farmer'sknowledgeof its use, and the conditionof the terrainupon
which it was run bore little resemblanceto the conditionsthat prevailed duringthe period in question-the 1830's,1840'sand 1850's.
A study of contemporaryaccounts and documentsuncovers numerouscitationssuggestingthat the useful life of a reaperor mower
was typically closer to five years or less. The lowest estimate is reported by Danhof who, citing contemporaryfarm journals,claims
that the averageuseful life of machinessold before 1850 was about
two years.7In 1856 the executive committee of the Illinois State
AgriculturalSociety assumedthat the better reaperswere "goodfor
4 David, "Midwest,"p. 33.
5 Hutchinson, Seed, pp. 73, 311, 471, and 365.
6 Rogin, Farm Machinery, p. 95 and fn. 145.
7 Clarence H. Danhof, Changes in Agriculture: the Northern United States, 18201870 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 235. Danhof cites the
Rural New Yorker,XII (1861), p. 382; XIII (1862), p. 390.
332
Olmstead
five years' wear."8 The judges presiding over the Auburn mower
and reaper trials held in 1866, after investigating the issue, noted
that "we have ascertained that the average life or duration of a
mowing machine is five years."9The Auburn report's estimate was
widely quoted by knowledgeable agricultural observers as representing the average life of both mowers and reapers. In 1866 the
editors of The Journalof the New-YorkState AgriculturalSociety
referring to both reapers and mowers asserted that ". . . it is known
. . . that the average life of a machine is four years."'0 Perhaps the
most compelling testimony concerning the expected average life of
reapers and mowers is offered by Walter A. Wood who regularly
estimated that his machines lasted four years."
A reevaluation of the questions surrounding the interest rate requires much less archival digging. At first glance the issue appears
straightforward. Relying on Hutchinson, David reports that the
"Selection of an appropriate rate of interest proves to be simple. It appears that the McCormick Company charged farmers a standard rate
of 6 percent on the unpaid balance of their reaper notes throughout
the 1850's."12 This is indeed a reasonable interpretation of Hutchinson, and it has been universally subscribed to by historians of the
period. But a reading of the sources used by Hutchinson reveals that
farmers typically paid a marginal interest rate far in excess of six
percent.'3 McCormick advertisements in the early 1850's generally
listed the price as "$115 if cash is paid on delivery . . . or $120 when
$30 is paid on delivery as above and the balance on the 1st December
next, with six per cent interest after 1st July next."'4When the extra
$5 "service charge" is subtracted from the price and added to the
interest, where it properly belongs, the actual rate of interest be8 Illinois State Agricultural Society, Transactions for 1856-57, II (Springfield:
Lanphier and Walker, 1857), p. 120. On pages 21 and 22 the committee again
assumes a five-year lifespan.
9 "Trial of Mowers and Reapers [at Auburn]," in New York State Agricultural
Society, Transactionsfor 1866, XXVI (Albany: Van Benthuysen & Sons, 1867), p.
342. (Hereafter cited as: "Auburn.")
10 The Journal of the New-York State Agricultural Society, XVI, August 1866,
p. 67.
11 For example see Walter A. Wood Mowing and Reaping Machinery Co., Circular For the Year 1870 (New York City: Benjamin D. Brown, 1870), p. 53. Similar
estimates are found in earlier circulars.
12 David, "Midwest,"p. 33.
13 See Hutchinson, Seed, pp. 362-63, p. 337, fn. 31, and p. 369; Harvest, pp.
71-75.
14 An 1849 advertisement similar to others found in the early 1850's is reproduced in Hutchinson, Seed, opposite p. 330.
Reaping and Mowing
333
comes nineteen percent A brief look at the practices of two other
manufacturersshows that they charged even higher rates. In 1860
the interestrate implied in Manny advertisementswas twenty-nine
percent, and in the period between 1855 and 1857 the rate implied
in Atkin'sadvertisementsranged between thirty-sixand forty-eight
percent5 Since McCormickoften offered extra discounts on cash
sales,it is possiblethat the true interestrate he chargedon occasions
approachedthose demandedby his competitors.
The selection of an appropriatediscount rate is further complicated because Hutchinsoninformsus that if the originalloans were
not repaid when due at the end of five or six months (and many
were not), McCormickgenerally renewed the loan at an interest
rate of ten percent.'6AssumingHutchinson'scalculationsare accurate, the appropriatediscount rate would become ten percent. A
final point of considerableimportanceis that for many farmersthe
purchase of a reaper necessitated complementarycapital investments-an extra horse, land clearing, fencing, and so on. In such
cases one must considerthe total investmentpackage.The marginal
interestrate on the complementarycapital most likely exceeded ten
percent and this higher rate, whateverit may have been, would become the appropriatediscountrate for the entirepackage.
In light of this reevaluationthe credit practices of early reaper
manufacturersappearmuch less novel than has hitherto been supposed. The accepted view, that McCormickand other producers
supplied loans at or below their own opportunitycost of funds and
substantiallybelow prevailingruralinterest rates rests upon a miscalculationof the true interestrate and must be discarded.The findings presentedabove also suggest that precise thresholdcalculations
are fraughtwith uncertainty.Reservationssimilarto those raised in
this section could be stated of every variableand parameterin the
thresholdequationexcept one (the price of the reaperis fairly well
agreed upon). The net impact of changes in these other variables
15 For example, in 1860 Manny listed the f.o.b. cash price as $135 or terms of
$50 cash (which is assumed to be paid on July 1), $50 on November 1 and $45
on January 1. These terms imply an interest rate of 29 percent. The Northwestern
Farmer, V (June 1860), p. 238.
16 This is the figure cited in Hutchinson, Harvest, p. 74. We do not know how it
was calculated, and the true rate may have been substantially higher.
17 Robert Ankli has convincingly raised such reservations about the wage rate and
the labor saving (or productivity) or the machine. See Robert Ankli, "The Coming
of the Reaper," unpublished manuscript, Department of Economics, University of
Guelph. Ankli has independently developed many of the ideas explored in this paper.
334
Olmstead
is at best uncertain,but the fact that apparentlyreasonablerevisions
in just two parameters(a life of five years, and an interest rate of
nineteen percent) generatethresholdsof approximately100 and 80
acres in periods I and II respectivelyhas ominousimplicationsfor
the future usefulnessof the thresholdmodel.'8To be sure, there is
a closing of the gap (from about seventy-fiveacres to about fifty
acres), but we are still left with a vast schism almost ten times as
large as that which emerged from David's period II calculations.
Given these reservationsit behooves us to examinemore closely the
assumptionsunderlyingthe model and searchfor an alternativeexplanationfor the belated adoptionof reapers.
REAPER SHARING AND CONTRACTING
One method by which farmerscould have drasticallynarrowed
the gap between their actual acreage and the threshold (however
wide this gap might have been) was to participatein sharingand
contractingarrangements.A substantialbody of evidence indicates
that a greatmany farmerstook advantageof this method,but before
examiningthis evidence,it would be useful to raisetwo relatedissues
that are crucialto the thresholdargumentbut which have gone unanalyzed. First, the argumentrequires that the actual acreage in
small grains be an independent variable, the increase of which
partlyexplainsthe diffusionof reapersand mowers.To date, neither
evidence nor logical argument has been offered to support this
particularline of causalityinstead of the alternativepossibilitythat
the advent of better reapers induced farmers to increase their
acreage."9The actual resolutionof this issue is complicatedby the
strong possibility that farmersincreased their acreage in anticipation of purchasing a reaper. In such instances the arrival of the
18 It is difficult to make precise statements of these revised thresholds since
using the higher interest rate requires a reduction in the initial price. Since the
prices used by David included an unknown proportion of both cash and credit sales,
it is impossible to determine how much of an adjustment is needed. In any case
the threshold calculations are not very sensitive to small changes in machine prices.
19 There are numerous accounts suggesting this latter line of causality. For
example, "They [mowers and reapers] have placed the farmer above the contingency of finding extra hands for securing his crops at a critical juncture, and on
this account can extend his breadth of sowing with the confidence of being able to
secure what he raises." J. J. Thomas, "Farm Implements and Machinery,"in Report
of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1862 (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O.,
1863), p. 421; see also Hutchinson, Harvest, p. 76.
Reaping and Mowing
335
reaperwould follow the acreageincreasebut still be a cause of the
increase.
Assumingthat the above caveat proves unfounded-that is, the
acreage in small grains was in fact determined independently of
reapers,a second imposingissue must be raised.What were the distributionsaroundthe two means reportedfor farms in selected Illinois counties?Without ancillaryassumptionsabout the distribution
functionof the acreagearoundthese means (assumingthese samples
are representativeof other grain-producingareas), David's model
leaves open the possibilitythat no farmercould have benefitedfrom
the introductionof the hand-rakereaper from 1833 to 1860. This
would be the case with distributionstightly skewed around the
means.Alternatively,with other distributionsthere could have been
several times as many farms exceeding the threshold acreage (in
grains) as there were reapersin use. In either case one would want
to searchbeyond the accepted explanation.20
These issues, althoughof conceptualinterest, take a back seat to
the moreimportantquestionof whetheror not there was widespread
sharingand renting.David arguesthat "In the apparentabsence of
feasible cooperativearrangementsfor sharingthe use of harvesting
machinery among farms at this time the reaping machine itself
constitutedan indivisibleinput for the farmer."'21This argumentis
particularlyinteresting because it runs counter to the economist's
usual proclivityto assume that side marketswill arise unless faced
by well-specified institutional or technological constraints which
cause marketfailure.It is thus necessaryto show that such barriers
did in fact exist.
There is little evidence of commercialrenting of reaping and mowing machines,
or commercialgrain harvesting by horsepower, such as developed in connection with the use of the large breaking-plowson the prairies during the 1850's.
Neighbors may well have shared the use of a reaping machine owned by one
farmer, compensatingthe owner on an informal basis, but, some inquiry into
contemporaryaccounts, farm newspapers, and such sources does not suggest
that this was commonpractise.... The fact that the maximumcutting capacity
of the early machines was not very large, especially when the time constraint
20 For an excellent discussion of the importance of the size distribution of farms
in telling the story of reaper adoption in Canada see Richard Pomfret, "The Introduction of the Mechanical Reaper in Ontario, 1850-70," mimeographed paper delivered at the Cliometrics Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, April 1974.
21 David, "Midwest,"p. 16.
336
Olmstead
on harvesting in any given locale is taken into consideration, coupled with
the high costs of overland transport for a bulky machine weighing upwards
of a half a ton, would appear to have militated against operating a profitable
itinerant commercialreaping enterprise during the ante-bellum era. The time
constraint seems the crucial factor, since it was not present to the same
degree either in prairie breaking operations or in post-harvest tasks such as
threshing and corn shelling; the former became established on a commercial
basis, while sharing of equipment among neighbors was not unusual in the
latter cases. Furthermore,as a consequence of the time constraint, the problems of deciding who was to have priority of use of a jointly owned reaper
would have required the owners (users) to form some compensationarrangement, equivalent to an output pool or a profit pool. The economic, not to
mention the political and sociological consequencesof a reorganizationof independent small farms into such pooling arrangementswould have profoundly
altered the course of agrarianhistory in the United States.22
A numberof scholarshave recognized that if machines could be
shared,therebymakingtheir services divisible, the thresholdmodel
would lose much of its appeal. Lance Davis and Alan Bogue have
made this point quite forcefully,but they only offeredhints of actual
evidence. Davis cites Bogue: "I gave this problem to a graduate
student one morningat eight o'clockand he was back in my office
by ten with a long list of cooperativepurchases."23
The student's
list came from McCormicksales records.Admittedly,a quotationof
a colleague citing an anonymousgraduatestudent referringto the
McCormickcollectionis not a standardform of scholarlyreference,
and one would like to ask severalquestionsconcerningthe representative natureof the student'slist. Notwithstandingthese minorobjections, one reasonablycould expect the proponentsof the threshold
model to investigatethis evidence, but such has not been the case,
for subsequentlythe thresholdmodel has been widely reproduced
and extended to explaindiffusionin other countries.In a discussion
dealing with the diffusionof reapersin Britain,a numberof noted
scholarsrecognizedthe potentialimportanceof cooperativeuse, but
David repeatedly asserted that reaperswere not shared or rented
because of "high transactionscosts," the "cost of negotiationsand
of forming a market,"and the cost of moving the reaperfrom one
farm to another.24He also noted that "Thebroaderquestionof why
Ibid., pp. 16-17, fn. 27.
Lance E. Davis, "'And It Will Never Be Literature': The New Economic History: A Critique,"Explorationsin EntrepreneurialHistory, 2nd series, VI (Fall 1968),
87-88.
24 David, "Britain,"pp. 214-15.
22
23
Reaping and Mowing
337
there were no reaping contractorsis an intriguingone," and added
that "thedifficulty[with tryingto measurethe transactionscost] was
that there were no reapingcontractingfirmsin existence and therefore no firmswhose books can be examined to establish how high
they were."At this junctureit is necessaryto emphasizethat all the
argumentsdenying the possibility of cooperativearrangementsare
ex post rationalizationsto explain the fact that no direct evidence
exists. These rationalizationsdo not themselvesconstituteevidence,
for no informationwhatsoeverpertainingto transactionscosts, and
so on, has been presented. In the face of direct evidence showing
cooperativeuse the rationalizationsbecome vacuous. With this in
mind it seems desirableto examine more thoroughlythe available
historicaldocuments.
An indicationof the pervasivenessof legal joint-ownershipcan be
gleaned from the records of the McCormickCompany.25Random
samplesof all McCormicksales in 1854 and 1859 show that in both
years approximatelyone out of every four reapers sold was purchased jointly by two or more individuals. In the overwhelming
majorityof cases the individualsdid not have the same last name.
An in-depth investigation indicates that the above figure underestimates the importanceof sharing in the Midwest because the
frequency of joint purchases varied sharply between regions. In
the more developed states (such as Virginia, Pennsylvania, and
Ohio) relatively few machines were purchasedjointly. But in the
newly settled states of the Midwest-including Illinois, Iowa, and
Wisconsin-over thirty percent of all McCormickreapers were
jointlypurchased.In some areasjoint ownershipwas very common.
For example, in 1854 the McCormickagency in Cordova, Illinois
(William Marshall& Son) sold 241 reapers in Iowa and Illinois;
ninety-four of these, or thirty-nine percent, were purchased jointly.
In 1858 this agency sold 536 machines-over forty percent were
jointly purchased. In 1858 the Wisconsin agency of Isaac G. Porter
&Company sold thirty-four machines-fifty-five percent were jointly
purchased. Over forty-one percent of the 255 machines sold in 1859
by Fish & Elliot in Iowa were purchased jointly. The facts are un25 The following discussion is based on data found in McCormick Company
ledgers entitled "Reaper Sales," for the years 1854, 1858, 1859, the McCormick
Collection in the Wisconsin State Historical Society Library. A random sample shows
that 24 percent in 1854 and 23 percent in 1859 of the reapers were jointly purchased. Cases where one of the individuals was identified as a financial backer securing the note of the other were tabulated as single rather than joint purchases,
338
Olmstead
deniable: not only was there widespreadjoint ownership,but this
form of sharing was most common in the Midwest. The point to
emphasizeis that the McCormicksamplesdeal with machineslegally
purchasedby two or more farmers.A multitude of other sources
indicate that this method of sharingmay have been far less common
than contractingand informalsharingamong neighbors.An examination of farmers'diaries,letters and memoirs,company advertisements, state agriculturalreports,journals,and agriculturalhistories
reveals hundredsof referencesto contractingand informalsharing
but only a few referencesto formaljoint ownershipof the type reflected in the McCormicksamples.
A search of farmers' diaries, letters, and autobiographiesuncovered twenty-three documents that mentioned reapers and/or
mowers. In many instances the references were very brief, comprisingonly one or two sentences.In thirteen there is explicit mention of sharingor contracting,in three cases it is uncertainwhether
or not the machineswere shared, and in seven cases there was no
mentionof cooperativeuse. Only one mentionedformaljoint ownership, and none explicitly denied that the machineswere shared or
rented.A few excerptsfromthese accountswill be most illuminating.
The followingsegmentfromthe diaryof BenjaminF. Gue illustrates
the apparentease with which he moved his Atkins self-rakerfrom
one farm to anotherin Iowa during the harvest of 1855.26
July
Mon.Jy. 2, was warm.I went down to Davenportafter our reaper.Got it,
AtkinsSelf Rakerpaid $180.00to Jacksonthe agentand $5.00 freight,
60 cents ferriage.Cameout to the brickhouse and put up. Borrowed
$90 fromF.J.ParkerforJo.
*
*
*
Wed. Jy. 11, was hot. A little past noon a tremendousstormof wind and
rainand hail cameover us and did an immenseamountof damageto
kindsof crops.
wheatandcornand~all
Thurs.Jy. 12, was hot. In the afternoonI tookthe Reaperup to Jerryswheat.
Fri. Jy. 13, was hot. We startedthe Reaperin Jerryswheat. The Reaper
workedwell.
Sat.Jy. 14, we finishedJerryswheat,got throughabout6 o'clock.
Sun.Jy. 15, waswarm,wentoverto Jos.
Mon.-Wed.Jy. 16-18,cut wheatforJo.
Thurs.Jy. 19, movedthe Reaperdownto JacksonParkersand cut 1/2 day.
26 Earle D. Ross (ed.), Diary of Benjamin F. Gue in Rural New York and
Pioneer Iowa; 1847-1856 (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1962), p. 128.
Reaping and Mowing
339
Fri. Jy. 20, was rainy, cut part of day.
Sat. Jy. 21, moved the Reaperdown to my place and cut for me.
Sun.-Mon.Jy. 22-23, cut for Jackson.
Tues.-Wed.Jy. 24-25, was warm, cut wheat for myself.
Thurs.Jy. 26, finishedmy wheat.
Fri.-Sat.Jy. 27-28, Began Jos wheat.
Sun. Jy. 29, cut for old Van....
Mon. Jy. 30, Jo cut wheat ?V2
day and for me ?2 day.
Tues. Jy. 31, Finished my wheat at 9 oclock and moved up to Jacksonsand
cut the rest of the day.
August
Wed. Aug. 1, was rainy all day.
Thurs.Aug. 2, Finished cutting for Jackson.
Fri. Aug. 3, cut for Tyler.
In all, Guereapedon six differentfarmsmakingat least eleven moves
fromone farmto another.
Similaraccounts are found in the diary of Mitchell Y. Jackson
who bought a Mannyin 1856. Jacksonregularlymowed and reaped
for himself, for his brother-in-lawOliver Caldwell, and for his
brother A. E. Jackson. In 1861 Mitchell Jacksonbought a "New
Yorker"self-rakingreaper and agreed to harvest eighty acres for
another neighbor on a contract basis.27Given the concern about
prohibitivelyhigh transportcosts it is worth noting that these farms
were not all contiguous.CharlesMarsh,the inventorof the Marsh
Harvester,matter-of-factlyrecalls that "In 1855 our grain was cut
by an Atkins self-raker hired for that purpose . . . , and in '56, in
connectionwith a neighbor, [we] purchaseda Manny reaper. ...
Marsh'sfarm was in IlliNext year we bought out our neighbor."28
nois. MarionDrury notes that in Iowa in the mid-1850'shis grandfather"boughtthe firstreaperof this kind [a McCormick]introduced
in our community,and for some years it was used to cut the grain
on a numberof neighboringfarms."29
These accounts are buttressed by Rodney Loehr's observation
that a Minnesotafarmer"aslate as 1865 . . . traveledabout reaping
27 See Rodney C. Loehr (ed.), Minnesota Farmers' Diaries: William R. Brown
1845-46; Mitchell Y. Jackson, 185263 (St. Paul: The Minnesota Historical Society,
1939), pp. 183-84, 194, 203-205.
28 Charles W. Marsh, Recollections 1837-1910 (Chicago: Farm Implement News
Company, 1910), p. 80.
29 Marion R. Drury, Reminiscences of Early Days in Iowa (Toledo, Iowa: Toledo
Chronicle Press, 1931), p. 21.
340
Olmstead
his neighbors'grain for a dollar an acre without horses for a dollar
and a quarter an acre if he furnished both horses and reaper."30
Loehr, who has probably studied most of the known diaries of
Minnesotafarmershas made the general observationthat "since
few settlers could affordthem, the fortunatefew cut grain by the
acre for their neighbors."'31
Company advertisementsoffer substantial support for Loehr's
conclusion that reapers and mowers were frequently shared and
rented. McCormick, Manny, Wood, Ketchum, Atkins, Hussey,
Brown, Easterly, Miller and numerous other manufacturersdistributed literature referring to the cooperative use of their machines.32A statementfound in an 1856 pamphlet published by the
Illinois Central Railroad is particularlysignificant because of its
apparentgenerality:
Reapingmachinesare almostaltogetherused at the West. They cost $125.
Theywill cut fourteenacresof wheatper day. Contractsfor reapingare made
at 621/2 cents per acre. The contractorfurnishesa driver,rakerand horses,
andthe farmerfindsbindersandshockers.33
Finally, there are actually published records describing in considerable detail the activities of several mowing contractors in
Massachusettsin 1855. For example,between July 3 and September
20, 1855 WilliamF. Portermowed on twelve differentfarms spread
30 Rodney C. Loehr, "Some Sources for Northwest History; Minnesota Farmers'
Diaries," Minnesota History, XVIII (September 1937), 290.
31 Loehr, Brown and Jackson, p. 17. Earle Ross makes a similar observation refering to Iowa in the 1850's. See Earle D. Ross, Iowa Agriculture: An Historical Survey (Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1951), p. 44.
32 The following examples represent only a small sampling of the statements
found in advertisements and catalogues. An 1849 McCormick advertisement states:
"Many farmers who have purchased one have earned its cost in one year in harvest-
ing for their neighbors . ..
," The Wisconsin Farmer and Northwestern
Cultivator,
I (June 1, 1849), 144b. A similar claim is found in an advertisement reproduced-in
Hutchinson, Seed, opposite p. 330. An 1853 Ketchum advertisement quotes D. W.
Schoonmakerof Seneca, New York: "I go round mowing; there has not been a day
since I commenced mowing but I have from five to ten persons after me to mow. I
have mowed in four towns . . . ," Ruggles, Nourse, Mason, & Co.: Catalog for 1853
(Worcester, Mass., 1853), p. 80. In an 1861 Manny circular R. W. Whiting notes
that "I had the pleasure of using one of your Manny Machines last year upon my
own and on some fifteen other farms in this town
. . . ,"
Alzirus Brown, Manny's
Patent Combined Mower and Reaper (Worcester, Mass., catalog for 1861), p. 11.
33 The Illinois Central Railroad Company, Farming and Wood Lands . . . (New
York: John W. Amerman, 1856), p. 16. Bidwell and Falconer cite 62 1/2 cents per
acre as the cost of hiring a mower in 1858. See Percy W. Bidwell and John I. Falconer, History of Agriculturein the Northern United States, 1620-1860 (Washington:
Carnegie Institute, 1925), p. 296.
Reaping and Mowing
341
acrossfour townships.Porternever spent more than parts of three
days in sucession on any one farm. He often mowed on two farms
the same day, and he frequentlyreturnedto farmson which he had
previously worked-in some cases as many as three times. He
mowed as little as one acre and as much as fifteen acres before
moving on to anotherfarm. His account shows that he moved his
machine between farms at least twenty-one times.84
To this point, discussionof sharingand contractinghas only dealt
explicitly with a subset of the relevant cooperative arrangements.
Assume FarmerJones rents his reaper to Farmer Smith. For purposes of analysis we could view this transactionfrom a different
perspective: Farmer Smith has rented his land to Farmer Jones.
Land leasing and sharingarrangementsofferedanothermethod for
farmersto spread the fixed costs of a reaper and thereby capture
the scale economiesit afforded.
In all, we have detailedreferencesto men whomwe can reasonably
describe as reaping and mowing contractorsoperating in Iowa,
Illinois,Wisconsin,Minnesota,and Massachusettsduringthe 1850's
and 1860's. Statementspublished in company brochurestestify to
the existenceof contractorsin most northernstates. The evidence of
widespreadcooperativeuse of harvestingequipmentraisesa number
of interestingquestionspertainingto the combinedimpactof institutional organization,sociologicalrelationships,and market development on technologicaldiffusion.Was sharingmoreprevalentin some
regionsthan in others and if so, why? What institutionaland social
arrangementsarose to help farmershedge on risks and lessen the
transactionscosts inherent in sharing arrangements?What were
some of the proceduresof contractorsoperatingin an entirely new
market,the extent of which was seriouslyrestrictedby the combined
effects of the state of the arts, the length of the harvest, and the
threat of bad weather?Did the potential for sharingincrease over
34 "Farm Implements: Reports of the Committee on Mowing Machines," in
Charles L. Flint (ed.), Abstracts of Returns of the Agricultural Societies of Massachusetts, 1855 (Boston: William White, 1856), pp. 125-176, esp. pp. 156-157.
Within these pages are also several related county society reports on mowers.
Although this paper only touches on British sources there is at least some evidence of similar sharing behavior there. "A considerable number of these machines
[reapers] have been worked on large farms, their price and bulk rendering them
comparatively inapplicable to smaller farms. This objection is, however, obviated
. . . by persons letting them out to hire, the farmer supplying the horses to work
the machines, and the owner sending a man to attend to it whilst working. On some
estates the landlords have purchased them, to afford their tenantry an opportunity of
hiring." Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, XX (1861), 127.
342
Olmstead
time thus contributingto diffusion?Resolutionof these questions
may have a critical bearing on our understandingof the diffusion
process,but without more researchonly tentative statementsare in
order.
From the McCormicksales records it appears that cooperative
purchases,althoughcommonto all regions,were most prevalentin
developing areaswhere reaperswere firstbeing introduced.As the
area matured,and as farmersbegan replacing their machines, the
importanceof joint purchases declined. This hypothesis conforms
both with literary descriptionsfound in farmer accounts and with
the limited samples already drawn from the McCormickledgers.
Such a hypothesis has conceptual appeal, for the relative benefits
frommechanizationand sharingwould have been greaterin developing regions.Nineteenth-centuryrurallabormarketswere notoriously
balkanized,but it is safe to generalizethat labor was much scarcer
in new agriculturalregions than in established communities.The
assumption underlying the comparativestatic analysis that individual farmersfaced a perfectlyelastic supply curve for labormight
be reasonablefor easternstates, but it is seriouslyat odds with the
starkrealities confrontedby many western farmers.The numerous
accounts of farmersin the weeks before the harvest or even at its
peak (when the opportunitycost of theirown time was exceptionally
high) roaming the countryside and nearby hamlets in search of
laborlends credenceto the practicalimplications,if not the theoretical preciseness,of the often-heardcliche that labor could not be
found at any price."35Higher wage rates and greater uncertainty
would have stimulated the adoption of reapers. But capital was
also scarcerin new areas,and would not higherinterestrates at least
in part offset the effect of higher wages? In answeringthis question
the significanceof McCormickcredit policies on regional diffusion
patterns and sharing becomes apparent. Although manufacturers
chargedmuchhigherinterestratesthanhas previouslybeen thought,
the rates were apparentlyuniformbetween regions, which means
that the financialcosts of a reaperwere not correspondinglyhigher
in capital-scarceareas.Relativefactor prices thus created a tremendous incentive for mechanization,but other problems restricted
individual adoption. Complementarycapital needed for adoption
35 If individual farmers in fact faced an upward sloping supply curve for labor
then we must abandon the assumption that there were no diseconomies of scale
to harvesting by cradle.
Reaping and Mowing
343
was scarce and often beyond the reach of individualfarmers.There
was a serious power constraint,for antebellumharvestersrequired
a minimum of two, and in many cases four, horses. Many small
farmerscould not afford this many animals, but when acting in
combinationwith their neighborsthis constraintvanished. Several
accounts of reaper sharing explicitly note the joint use of horses.
Land was abundantbut cleared, fenced, plowed, and planted land
was not. All of these operationsrequired capital, labor, and time,
and thus, while relative factor prices favored mechanization,constraintsin the supply of complementarycapital and acreage limitations militated against individual ownership. The logical solution
was cooperativeuse of reapers.Graduallyfarmersaccumulatedthe
needed complementarycapital and increasedtheir acreagein small
grains,partlybecause they had access to a harvester.These changes
reduced the need for sharing, and thus the incidence-or average
sharing rate-decreased. But on the margin, that is among new
farmersor those convertingfrom hand to machine harvesting,sharing remained important.This is a crucial point because it is the
behavior at the margin-of first users-that is of most interest in
analyzingproblemsof technologicaldiffusion.Thus our fixationon
average sharing rates, of which the McCormickdata suggest a
lower bound of about twenty-five percent, underestimatesthe importanceof joint use on initial adoption.
The generalimpressionconveyed in literarysources,testimonials,
and state reports is that sharing and contractingwere also more
frequentin the New England states. Again there is ample cause to
accept this hypothesis, for the reasons offered in contemporary
sourcesare quite convincing.Sharingand contractingarrangements
proliferatedbecause the farmswere too small to warrantindividual
ownership.Furthermore,a far greaterproportionof the workin this
region was mowing grassesas opposed to reapingwheat. The argument that harvestingequipment could not be contractedhas been
appliedto both reapersand mowers,but it is clearthat technological
constraintsdid not so seriouslyrestrictthe mobility of mowers,for
they lacked the cumbersomereel found on most reapers. Finally,
dependingon the local conditions,the length of the harvest season
could be substantiallylonger in mowing operations, and grasses
were not as seriouslythreatenedas grainsby bad weather.
What of the institutionaland sociologicalcharacteristicsof sharing
and contractingagreements?The discovery of cooperativeuse ob-
344
Olmstead
viously has not ". . . profoundlyaltered the course of agrarianhistory. . . ," but neverthelessit is worth asking how the participants
pooled risks,determinedprioritiesof use, and so on. An understanding of these issuesrequiresus to realize that we are not dealingwith
negotiations between impersonal corporationsor total strangers.
Bargainingcosts were greatlyreducedby the strongbonds of mutual
trust that united the participants.Neighbors, perhaps united by
blood, but in any case welded to one anotherby their commonexperienceof the lonelinessand hardshipsof rurallife, did not bicker
over the details of "profitpools."In most cases if tragedystruckone
partner,it would have been unthinkablefor the others not to have
volunteeredcompensation.But the participantsdid not rely entirely
upon the potential benevolence of their neighbors,for they devised
a rather obvious method to pool risks-all detailed accounts of
sharing and contracting show that the machine was frequently
moved back and forth between farms. Thus if bad weather struck
in the middle of the harvest,each of two sharerswould have about
one-half of his grain shocked. Smallerfarmersrecognized that half
a loaf is better than none and that immediatelysharinga reaperor
mower is preferableto waiting years until they had amassed the
necessary acreage and resources to permit profitable individual
ownership.The risks and costs of sharinghave always been juxtaposed with those of individualownership.A more accuratereflection
of the options small farmers faced is revealed if the question is
rephrasedand we cast the risks and costs of sharing against those
inherentin the continueduse of cradles.Fromthis latterperspective
the reaper, even if shared, affordedinsuranceagainst disaster,for
it allowed small farmersto cut as much wheat in one day as they
could cradlewith their limited laborsupply in severaldays.
A final point of considerableinterest is that technical change in
machine design introduced in the late 1840's and throughoutthe
1850'shad a profoundeffect on machineproductivityand maneuverability, thereby increasingthe potential for sharingand facilitating
diffusion.These technicalchangeswere of such great importancein
determiningthe timing and pace of diffusion that they warrant
special consideration.
SECONDARY INVENTIONS, MACHINE PRODUCTIVITY, AND DIFFUSION
The comparative-staticthresholdmodel provides an explanation
for the more than twenty-yearlag in reaper acceptance which emphasizesthe shortrun changesin marketforces.The model and the
Reaping and Mowing
345
accompanyingargument assume that the technical proficiencyof
what David calls the "basic reaper"was constant over time. No
allowance is made for changes in supply conditions (including
technicalrefinements,better marketingprocedures,improvedrepair
facilities, and so on) except insofar as such changes might be reflected in the nominalprice of the machinery.We have alreadyseen
above that revisions in two parameters somewhat diminish the
"predictive"powers of the thresholdmodel. The question at issue
here is, given its apparentvariance with historical conditions and
with the hypothesesof previousscholars,does the model even provide an interestingexplanationof the diffusionprocess.We have a
readily available competing explanation.A number of historians
have arguedthat the lag between inventionand popularacceptance
was largely due to the simple fact that the early machines were
crude, unwieldy, and unreliable-in short, they did not work well.
But in the late 1840'sand the early 1850's a number of important
design modificationsand complementaryinventions-what Usher
has termed "secondaryinventions"-were introducedwhich vastly
increasedmachineproductivity.These changes reduced the risksof
disastrousbreakdownsin the midst of the harvest, lessened the
horsepowerand auxiliarymanpower requirements,and increased
machineversatilityand mobility. All of these changes would act to
reduce the required threshold acreage in small grains needed for
profitableadoption.
To assess the relative merits of the competing explanationsit
would be useful to establish with some precision what has been
said by the proponentson each side and to assess the documentary
bases for these divergent views. This historiographicalinquiry is
especially called for given the widespreadacceptanceby economic
historiansof the view that "the reaper"was, for practicalpurposes,
availablein the 1830's.
In summarizingthe basic problemDavid notes:
Despite the fact that the history of commercialproductionof mechanicalreaping machines in the United States stretched back without interruptionto the
early 1830's, this industry was one that only began to flourish in the 1850's.
. . . Thus the intriguing question to which an answer must be given is why
only at that time [the mid-1850's] were large numbers of farmers suddenly
led to abandon an old, labor-intensivemethod of cutting their grain, and to
switch to the use of a machine that had been available since its invention
two decades earlier?36
36
David, "Midwest,"pp. 8, 9.
346
Olmstead
Elsewhere David discusses the "basicreaper"and the "pioneering
hand-rakemodel," implying a constant product over a span of a
decade or more.87In his study of diffusionof reapersin Britainhe
extends this assumptionto an even longer time period. "Progressin
the design of machinerycould increaseits versatilityin coping with
a variety of terrainconditions."But a few lines later he notes that
"withinthe period with which the present analysisdeals, however,
there were no radicaldesign advancesof this sort in reapingequipIn this case the relevantperiodis 1851 to 1871.
ment."88
In all this discussionthere is little reference to specific technical
obstaclesor to the accountsof traditionalhistoriansexcept an occasionalremarktermingtheir argumentsunconvincingand vague. For
example: "One would have to find more convincing technical obstacles than are discussedin the authoritativeworks on the reaper
to account for the lag betwen the first sale of Hussey'smachine in
1833 ... and the eventualadoptionof the innovationin the 1850's."39
It is time to exhumesome of the traditionalaccounts.
The historians who seriously studied reapers had a thorough
understandingof the refinementsin reaper design; if they were
"vague"it was because they did not want to belaboran issue which
they knew to be obvious.In one of severalallusionsto the importance
of design changes Hutchinsonnotes:
.[. (A] complete story of the mechanicalevolution of the reaper between 1848
and 1855 would involve technicalities beyond the purpose of this narrative,
but several changes of considerableimportancewere introducedwhich require
mention. Scarcely a single element [of the McCormickreaper] was left untouched.40
Hutchinsonitemizes eleven majorchanges introducedwithin a few
years that encompassedthe precise time when the first boom in
reapersales occurred.
Rogin'saccountagreeswith that offeredby Hutchinson.
The inventor himself [McCormick] furnishes the explanation for his reaper's
failure to gain earlier popularity, for he tells us that his machines "were not
of much practical value until the improvementof my second patent in 1845."
. .Thus we are told that of one hundred reapers sold in 1847 without
dividers, eighty were returned. Upon the addition of "improved"dividers, the
87
88
89
40
Ibid., p. 22.
David, "Britain,"p. 186.
David, "Midwest,"p. 13; also see p. 11.
Hutchinson, Seed, p. 325; also see p. 324.
Reaping and Mowiing
347
reapers were accepted and used during the subsequent harvest. Nevertheless,
the McCormick reaper was not a truly practicable machine so long as its
capacity was limited by the ability of a man walking on the ground to rake
the grainoff the platformas it was cut.41
Rogin describesthe tedious processof trial and errorspanningfour
or five years (1845 to 1849) before McCormicksucceeded in perfecting a raker'sseat. Rogin (and McCormick)consideredthis improvementan essentialprerequisiteto widespreadadoption.42Next,
Rogintraces out the improvementsin the cutting bar between 1850
and 1854 which allowed McCormick'smachineto serve as a mower
and improvedits performanceas a reaper:
[T]hese valuable improvements... were instrumentalin increasingthe use of
horse-drawn harvesting machinery in reaping grain. When we turn to the
figures for the production of McCormick machines we are struck by the
notable increase which took place during 1855 and 1856. This increase does
not representmerely the natural accelerationin the adoption of a new invention, for, as the bookkeeper in McCormick'semploy since 1849 pointed out,
the machines for 1855, 1856, and 1857, were the first ones to give general
satisfaction.43
This brief anthologyis intended to illustratethe importancethat
the leading researchersplaced on technical refinementsin determining the eventual diffusionof reapers.A look at the rapidly changing
compositionof reapersales offersan idea of the marketsignificance
of the more importantchanges. Between 1849 and 1857 the traditional hand-rakereaper'sshare of the total market declined from
almost one hundred percent to below twenty-five percent. By the
mid-1850'sabout seventy-five percent of the "reapers"sold were
mowers, combines, and self-rakers-machines that did not exist in
the mid-1840's.
Probably the single most important change accounting for the
jump in total reapersales was the improvementin cutting bar and
knife design that led to the development of specialized mowing
machines (as well as combines, and improvedreapers). One must
remember that the aggregate data do not distinguish between
41 The early attempts threw the machines off balance and the seats had to be
removed. Rogin, Farm Machinery, pp. 88-89. Also see John F. Steward, The Reaper:
A History of the Efforts of Those Who Justly May Be Said To Have Made Bread
Cheap (New York: Greenberg, Inc., 1931), p. 198.
42 Rogin, Farm Machinery, pp. 87-90; Steward, The Reaper, p. 201.
43 Rogin, Farm Machinery, p. 91. Ardrey presents arguments similar to those
offered by Hutchinson and Rogin; see Ardrey, Farm Implements, pp. 47, 153, 229.
348
Olmstead
mowers and reapers,so the widely cited figure of 70,000 "reapers"
sold between 1850 and 1858 includes mowers, hand-rakereapers,
combines and self-rakers.Most accounts agree that even crude
mowersdid not exist until about 1847 at the earliest,yet as a rough
estimate it appears that specialized mowers accounted for at least
twenty-fivepercent of the total increasein "reaper"sales.44
Cuttingbar improvementswere also responsiblefor the explosion
in the popularity of combines. Combines permitted a farmer to
spread the fixed cost of a machine over a larger acreage, thereby
loweringthe thresholdacreagerequiredin grainsalone. In the early
1850's McCormickexperiencedserious problemsin developing his
combine, and he did not considerit perfected until 1855. Notwithstanding these problems,by 1854, at the very start of the boom in
reapersales,"mostof the machineswhich were sold [by McCormick]
Since McCormickfolwere combined reapers and mowers...
his
combine,it is reasonperfecting
in
producers
other
major
lowed
able to presumethat by 1854 a majorityof industrysales were combines. This observationis particularlysignificant because smaller
farmers-those near the thresholdmargin, and thus the only ones
of interest insofar as the thresholdmodel is concerned-evidently
showed a distinctpreferencefor combines.
The shift to self-rakersalso began in the mid-1850's.Between 1853
and 1856,Atkinssold approximately4,000 self-rakersand claimed to
be producing5,000 in 1857.46Otherfirmswere producingself-rakers
in the mid-1850's,and it is possible that their output exceeded
Atkins'.47
By 1860Hutchinsonestimatesthat therewere about20,000
self-rakers,which would have accountedfor twenty-fivepercent of
all the reapersin use.48
There is no doubt that there were significantand rapid shifts in
44 Ketchum, the first producer to specialize in mowers, sold nine machines in
1849. The estimate of mower sales is based on figures found in Hutchinson and in
company circularsand advertisements.These data indicate about 20,000 mowers were
sold between 1850 and 1858.
45 Hutchinson, Seed, p. 323.
46 This would have exceeded McCormick's sales by about 1,000 machines. The
Northwestern Farmer, II (February 1857), 84. Also see Hutchinson, Seed, p. 326
for 1854 sales.
47 Ardrey, Farm Implements, p. 229.
48 Hutchinson, Harvest, p. 393. David apparently errs in claiming that "McCormick did not manufacture a self-rake model until the introduction of the 'Advance'
in the post Civil War period," for Hutchinson notes that McCormick made his first
self-rakers in 1861 and by 1864 two-thirds of his entire output were self-rakers.
David, "Midwest,"pp. 21-22; also see p. 34; Hutchinson, Harvest, p. 96.
Reaping and Mowing
349
the compositionof sales awayfromthe basic hand-rakereaperduring
the 1850's. Its rapidly dwindling market share indicates design
changes and farmer preferences were fast making this style of
harvesterobsolete. But assumewe disregardthe diminishingability
of the basic hand-rakereaperto compete.If we want to hold technology constantin orderto identify the importanceof changingmarket
forces, is it reasonable,especially in light of the emphasis of the
traditionalhistorians,to considerthe hand-rakereaperto have been
an homogeneous product during the period 1849-1857,let alone
over two or three decades?Is there any evidence that the technical
refinementswhich have so impressed some historiansdid in fact
result in improved performance,thus increasing the reaper'seconomic worth?
A study of the reportsof the variousmowerand reapertrialsoffers
an indication of the rapid improvementin performance.Prior to
1852 there are only the qualitativeobservationsof the judges of the
1848 Buffalo trials sponsoredby the New York State Agricultural
Society. The judges found that all the machines clogged badly,
were extremely heavy, and had excessive side drafts. The judges
rated the machines' overall performanceand the quality of their
workbelow that done with a scythe or cradle.49Only four yearslater
at Genevathe resultswere quite different.The judgesnow were very
favorablyimpressedwith the economic worth of the better reapers
and mowersalthoughthey still noted many flaws. For example,five
out of the seven mowers tested "clogged frequently,"and two of
the seven "ceasedto work."McCormick'sknives had to be replaced
twice, and his machinewas judged "toofragile for useful purposes"
as a mower, and as a reaperit lacked "firmness"and subjected the
horses to a heavy side draft.50Such criticismsseldom appearedin
later reports.
One of the most important summary measures of reaper and
mower performance,and one we can compareover time, was their
draft while in operation.Table 1 records the average draft of the
reapers and mowers competing in Geneva, New York in 1852;
Hamilton,Ohio in 1857; and Auburn,New Yorkin 1866. Over the
49 As reported in Danhof, Changes in Agriculture, p. 234; also see Fifth Annual
Report of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture of the State of Michigan
for the Year 1866, V (Lansing: John A. Kerr & Co., 1866), p. 261.
50 "Report of the Committee on Trial of Impliments at Geneva, July, 1852,"
in New York State Agricultural Society, Transactionsfor 1852, XII, 104-112. (Hereafter cited as "Geneva.")
350
Olmstead
TABLE
1
REAPERAND MOWERDRAFT
1852, 1857, 1866
Reapers
Mowers
Geneva
1852
Hamilton
1857
Auburn
1866
410
403
258
341
247
234
Sources:Calculatedfromdata foundin "Geneva,"p. 111; O.A.R. for the Year 1857,
pp. 227-231, 349, 403.
XII, 101; and "Auburn,"
span of fourteenyears the averagedraftof both reapersand mowers
declined about forty percent.This downwardtrend in draft dramatically reflects the cumulativeimpact of a host of technologicalrefinements on several aspects of reaper and mower performance
bearing directly on their horsepowerneeds and on their maneuverability in rough terrain.5'These changes would have facilitated
movingreapersbetween farms,therebystimulatingcooperativeuse.
Underlyingthe decline in draftwas a reductionin frictionand wear
on moving parts which resulted in greater durability.The judges
at Auburnexplicitlyequatedhigh draftwith poor workmanshipand
faulty design.
The main causes, of this wide differencewere, 1st. Bad workmanship,ill made
gearings, rough bearings and imperfect adjustmentsof lines and parallelisms.
2d. Surface draft; wheels so narrow as to cut into the ground; castor wheels,
greatly increased draft by their tendency to present their broad surfaces to
the line of draft. So the great weight of some machines, by increasing their
surfacepressure,at the same time increasedtheir draft.52
Similarobservationslinking draft with design were made at other
trials.For example,the judges at the 1857 Syracusetrials concluded
that a relatively simple but innovativechange in the design of the
51 For a discussion of reapers requiring an increase in horses see Gould P. Colman, "Innovation and Diffusion in Agriculture," Agricultural History, XLII (July
1968), 177-78. Danhof asserts that "The need for several teams militated against
the machine in the eyes of countless farmers who possessed only one team, or
perhaps a lone horse." See Danhof, Changes in Agriculture, p. 232. Numerous
design changes increased reaper versatility. Besides the reduction in draft discussed
above, the Kirby machines marketed in the last half of the 1850's introduced independently suspended finger-bars. "This independent action and flexibility of the
finger-bar, lessens the liability to breakage when in contact with obstructions."The
finger bar could also be easily set at any desired height. Ben[jamin] Perdey Poore
(ed.), Field Trial of Reapers, Mowers, and Harvest Impliments, By the United
States Agricultural Society at Syracuse, N.Y. July 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th,
and 20th, 1857 (Boston: Bazin & Chandler, 1858), p. 47. (Hereafter cited as:
Syracuse.)
52 "Auburn," p. 349.
Reaping and Mowing
351
cutting bars on Wood'smower reduced its draft by more than fifty
pounds.3 The lighter draft, insofar as it stemmed from improved
cutting bar and knife design, resulted in less clogging and fewer
breakdownsduring peak load seasons. Whereas clogging was universal at Buffaloin 1848, and generallythe case at Geneva in 1852,
it was a rare occurrenceat Auburn in 1866. By then most of the
better mowers could stop and start in heavy grass without backing
the machine-a feat seldom accomplishedin the early 1850's.Although improvementsin the cutting apparatuswere most important
for mowing, they also improved reaper performanceespecially in
wet, downed,or heavy grain.
CONCLUSION
A detailed examinationof the historical evidence indicates that
we must searchbeyond the explanationofferedby the comparative
static thresholdmodel if we desire to understandthe dynamics of
reaper diffusion. By adjusting the depreciationparameterto conform with a value commonly cited in contemporarysources, the
threshold model provides a basis for concluding that few if any
midwesternfarmerswould have rationallyadopted a reaper in the
1850's. Even if we could obtain accurate estimates of this (and
other) parameters,we still must ask whether the thresholdmodel
helps us understandthe diffusionof the reapergiven the assumptions
of indivisibilityand no technologicalchange.
Machineservices were in fact divisible-sharing and contracting
were widely practiced. The fact that we have record of a reaper
contractor(known to his neighborsas "a fanner") working on six
farms in one season suggests that sharingwas indeed feasible and
that similararrangementsinvolvingfewer farmerswould have been
correspondinglyeasier. The diffusionprocess was integrallylinked
patterns,for it appearsthat cooperato changingsharing-contracting
tive use of harvestingequipmentwas particularlyimportantamong
firstusers,and that it was most commonin newly developingregions.
Furthermore,it appearsthat design changesmarkedlyincreasedthe
potentialfor cooperativeuse and thus diffusionin the early 1850's.
An understandingof why reaperswere suddenly accepted in the
1850's after a twenty-year hiatus requires that we recognize the
53 See the discussion of Walter A. Wood's mowers and reapers in Syracuse, pp.
40-41.
352
Olmstead
economicsignificanceof numeroustechnicalrefinementson machine
productivity.Changesin relativefactor prices as emphasizedin the
comparative static model undoubtedly contributed to diffusion.
Traditionalhistoriansrecognizedthis point, but they consideredit of
minorimportancecomparedto the effect of changing technological
factors on diffusion-to date not one iota of evidence has been
offered that seriously challenges this judgment. From this latter
perspectivethe storyof the reaper,ratherthan contradicting,actually
reinforces Rosenberg'sargument emphasizing the importance of
secondary inventions and design modifications on the diffusion
process. "By concentratingour attention upon the sharp discontinuities associated with major inventions, we are misrepresenting
the mannerin which the gradualgrowthin the stockof usefulknowledge is transformedinto improvementsin resourceproductivity.654
The properparablefor the reaperis not the story of Archimedesin
but the tale of the ugly duckling.
the tub shouting"Eureka,"
Finally, we would be remissnot to raise some importantmethodological issues. On this subject we can do no better than to heed
ProfessorDavid's own warning "that the econometric historianespecially if he should keep regular company with theorists-lives
in perpetualdangerof neverpausingto askwhetherthere is perhaps
some direct evidence to suggest he should favor a different, and
possiblyless mathematicallytractableset of priors."55
ALANL. OLMSTEAD, University of California, Davis
54 Nathan Rosenberg, "Factors Affecting the Diffusion of Technology," Explorations in Economic History, X (Fall 1972), 8.
56 Paul A. David, "The Use and Abuse of Prior Information in Econometric
History: A Rejoinder to Professor Williamson on the Antebellum Cotton Textile
Industry," THE JOURNALOF ECONOMICHIsToRY, XXXII (September
1972), 725.