Reaper

Reaper, machine for harvesting grain. The U.S. inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick's horse-drawn reaping machine (1831) consisted simply of a long knife, or cutter bar, a platform, and a rotating reel to bend the grain back against the knife and knock it onto the platform. The modern reaper, or self-binder, cuts the standing grain, binds it into sheaves with twine, and then ejects the sheaves onto the ground. Reapers are seldom used today for cutting grain, however; the harvesting of grain is done mostly with combine harvesters, machines that combine reaping and threshing.

See also: McCormick, Cyrus Hall.